Happy 35th Anniversary

Today is the thirty-fifth anniversary of a watershed day in music.  On that day, September 24th, 1991, not one, not two, but THREE iconic, genre-defining albums were released:  The Red Hot Chili Peppers' Blood Sugar Sex Magik, A Tribe Called Quest's The Low End Theory, and, of course, Nirvana's Nevermind.  A recent Rolling Stone article called it "probably the best day ever for new albums in music history", an assessment that is difficult to refute.

In the past, I've already said my peace about The Chili Peppers, and how I wrote them off after their third album, 1987's The Uplift Mofo Party Plan, and thus missed their ascent into popular and critical acclaim - starting with Mother's Milk in 1989 and peaking with BSSM two years later.  I was late in acknowledging the band and giving them their due, I'll admit that.

As for Nirvana, I've written extensively about them here over the years.  Don't think I need to rehash my stories about/memories of this group - if you want to reprise them, the posts are here and here. 

Regarding ATCQ:  I've never been much of a hip-hop aficionado.  To me, a lot of that genre consists of a bunch of posturing and braggadocio, heavily laden with profanity to make it "sound like the STREETS" (whatever that means) over the same tired, repetitive beats.  A Tribe Called Quest, however, was one of the very few hip-hop artists that broke out of that mold.  Their musical influences were vast, incorporating elements of jazz, funk and soul into their sound.  To call them a "hip-hop group" diminishes their output and importance; in many ways, A Tribe Called Quest's artistry transcended rap.

The only Tribe Called Quest story I have is that I was in the crowd for their final East Coast show and one of their last ever live performances, at the Panorama Music Festival on Randall's Island in New York City on July 30th, 2017.  Someone gifted me two tickets to the concert; I ended up selling one at the gates for almost three times the face value!  I went to the festival mainly to see the reemergence of Trent Reznor's Nine Inch Nails to the stage after a long hiatus.  But Tribe, who went on immediately before NIN as the sun went down, immediately grabbed my interest.  

Group mainstay Phife Dawg had died earlier that year, and the band decided to call it quits soon after.  For the New York performance, an empty mike stood on stage the entire time in tribute to the deceased group member.  The remaining members (Q-Tip, Ali Shaheed Muhammad, and Jarobi White) left it all on the stage for their last show in their hometown, belting out classics like "Check The Rhime" and "Electric Relaxation".  Here's a live sample of "Buggin' Out" (off The Low End Theory) from a video I recorded that day:

 

All in all, a great show.

Well, I won't belabor the point here regarding these three monumental albums; after 35 years, you all are already aware of the greatness of them.  So, here you are, the releases from that red-letter day, September 24th, 1991:

• Nirvana - Nevermind, put out on DGC Records (what I'm offering here is the four-disc 20th Anniversary Super Deluxe edition, released in 2011.  There was also a five-disc 30th Anniversary edition released five years ago. but most of the additional discs include full live band concerts from that era, and seems a little redundant.  Trust me - this is the version you want);
• The Red Hot Chili Peppers - Blood Sugar Sex Magik, released by Warner Bros. Records (Here's the Deluxe edition, containing two extra songs not included on the original album); and
• A Tribe Called Quest - The Low End Theory, released on Jive Records.

I'm sure that most of you already have these albums, or some version of them.  If not, here, enjoy, and as always, let me know what you think.

(And yes, yes - I'm fully aware that both Primal Scream's Screamadelica and The Pixies' Trompe Le Monde also came out on that fateful day as well (as I recall, the Pixies disc was the only one I actually purchased on its release day...).  These albums have their fans, but in my opinion come nowhere close to the impact and influence of the three discs mentioned above.  If we were gonna

include ALL of the albums released that day, I would have included MOR dung like Bryan Adams' Waking Up The Neighbors here as well - that damn thing ended up selling 16 million copies!  But that's not happenin'!)

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

• Nirvana - Nevermind (2011 Super Deluxe Edition) (4 Discs) Send Email

• The Red Hot Chili Peppers - Blood Sugar Sex Magik (Deluxe Edition) Send Email

• A Tribe Called Quest - The Low End Theory Send Email

The Nation Of Ulysses - 13-Point Program To Destroy America

Back in the early 1990s, the Washington DC area was filled both with great music stores and slammin' music venues. When I moved back up to the region for my shore duty station in Arlington, after spending three years on sea duty out of Norfolk, Virginia, I was like a kid in a candy store! I set about rediscovering all of the great places in and around the city, some of which I became familiar with during my time in school in nearby Annapolis, Maryland in the mid-1980s.

In a post I wrote about fifteen years, I summarized the club scene in DC during this period; here's an excerpt from that write-up once again:

Back [in the early Nineties], 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...

In addition, there were some great back-alley/warehouse type clubs along the M Street corridor, in one of which one night I first heard Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit", a story I've related to you all earlier.

As for buying music, my go-to place back then was the old George Washington University branch of Tower Records, just off of Pennsylvania Avenue. They had a huge selection of tapes and CDs spread over two floors, and the place was always packed. For music that was more out of the mainstream, I'd go to one of the then-several locations of Olsson's Books & Records;

my favorite one was on Wisconsin Avenue in Georgetown, just around the corner from Smash! Records, a venue that specialized in local hardcore punk and English post-punk releases, along with an incredible selection of band/concert tee shirts. For house and dance music, few stores could beat 12 Inch Dance Records on P Street near Dupont Circle. And over in the Adams-Morgan neighborhood, the discount CD & Tape Exchange had thousands of used, half-price albums for sale.

As I gradually moved away from cassette tapes and into CDs in those years (I suppose I was one of the last holdouts for THAT format...), I began to seek out stores a little further afield than in downtown DC to feed my collection. In an earlier post, I mentioned Phantasmagoria Records in nearby Wheaton, Maryland, the place where I almost saw Stereolab play their second U.S. show back then. Really loved that store; it's been gone for more than 25 years now, but still missed by many.

The other place outside of the city I used to frequent early in my time in the area was just over the city/state line: Vinyl Ink Records in Silver Spring, Maryland. Vinyl Ink was a relatively small, single-room facility, and the selection there wasn't as extensive as could be found at Tower or Phantasmagoria. But the place was staffed by locals who were incredibly knowledgeable in both the local scene and in what was happening over in England (from what I understand, members of such still-celebrated DC indie bands such as Black Tambourine and Velocity Girl worked there at various times; the Slumberland Records music label was initially started out of that shop). Vinyl Ink specialized in English shoegaze bands and local groups, but the main
attraction there for me was the store's extensive rack of music fanzines for sale. They had a few of the national ones, and a ton of the locally produced ones, including my favorite, Teenage Gang Debs (a superb history/overview of this great fanzine is located here).

One day, while I was in Vinyl Ink browsing the racks, I noticed a small half-sized (5 1/2" by 8") pamphlet on colored stock, half-hidden among the larger-sized publications. It was the seventh edition of Ulysses Speaks!, the ongoing half-music 'zine/half manifesto dissemination put out by The Nation Of Ulysses.

The Nation Of Ulysses was a DC-area punk band that formed a couple of years earlier, in 1988. The band (made up of drummer Jim Canty, bassist Steve Gamboa, lead guitarist Steve Kroner, second guitarist Tim Green and Ian Svenonius on lead vocals) gigged constantly around the area, shows that were infamous for their high-decibel, aggressive, almost free form noise and extreme violence. Audience members routinely got hurt during their performances, and band members were known for breaking bones on stage. That sort of scene really wasn't my cup of tea at that time, so I heard about these events secondhand, never attending one of their concerts.

Coupled with their sound was a jumbled, somewhat pretentious and semi-infantile "band philosophy" the group claimed to operate under. To quote from Wikipedia:

Nation of Ulysses described themselves not as a rock 'n' roll group in the traditional sense, but "as a political party"[14] and as "a shout of secession." Explaining their intent, Svenonius said "it's basically a new nation underground for the dispossessed youth colony. It's all about smashing the old edifice, the monolith of rock and roll." AllMusic's Steve Huey described the Nation of Ulysses' philosophy as "a relentlessly provocative (and entertaining) jumble of teenage rock 'n' roll rebellion, leftist radicalism, anarchist punk polemics, and abstract intellectual rambling, [...] [which gives the sense of] an off-kilter, almost tongue-in-cheek approach to a 'perpetual 18-year old's' view of America, and life in general."

Outside of their music, the band's main organ for promoting this somewhat effed-up agenda/ideology was via Ulysses Speaks!, initially distributed at their concerts before the 'zine became more widely available at independent music shops in the area. The zines espoused what The Nation Of Ulysses referred to as "The Ulysses Aesthetic, "a jumbled mix of "1960s and 1970s radical politics, French Situationist writings, and juvenile delinquency". One was never quite sure if the group was being serious about this philosophy, or it was all just a giant put on.

Anyway, by the early '90s, The Nation Of Ulysses was simply another hardcore punk band in a city filled with music, with a small but rabid regional following. That changed in 1991.

Sassy, a feminist magazine for teen girls, was launched in 1988. It was considered the antithesis of existing mainstream teen lifestyle magazines such as Seventeen and Teen, because in its time it reflected a very hip, independent and (shall we say) "sassy" attitude about what was going on in the world. Every issue of Sassy contained interesting, irreverent feature stories with a feminist outlook, interviews with people important to teens, and extensive coverage of emerging indie bands nationwide (DC area native Erin Smith, one of the editors of the aforementioned Teenage Gang Debs 'zine and a member of Bratmobile, was hired early on as an intern in the music features department). And the public responded to this fresh approach; by 1990, Sassy boasted a monthly circulation of more than 450,000.

Since its founding, the magazine held an annual "Sassiest Girl In America" contest. And in the winter of 1991, Sassy launched its first annual "Sassiest Boy In America" competition. Over 100 entries were received from readers all over the country, and that inaugural winner was none other... than Ian Svenonius.

Overnight, the band's profile went nationwide, with the article declaring that The Nation Of Ulysses and Svenonius were going to be HUGE: "He's going to be a big deal. I'm sure he will be and we're going to be so proud that we were the first ones to discover him." Even afterward, when it was discovered that Ian had broken the contest rules and lied about his age (he wasn't a "boy" at all, but a 22-year-old man), the magazine still supported him (and let him keep his title).

Note that all of this national recognition and vaunted editorial predictions of success came before The Nation Of Ulysses had even released a single recording. The band's first long-player, 13 Point Program To Destroy America, came out in the early summer of 1991, a few months after the magazine issue hit the shelves, and just after I moved back to the Washington DC area.

What can I say about this album? Well, for the most part, to me, it's paint-by-numbers juvenile hardcore punk - all thrash-and-bang, trebly (whoever mixed this disc turned the bass WAY down, so the majority of the songs have no bottom rhythm), fast and loose, with Svenonius' shouty declarations slathered over the "music'. The few songs that do break out of this mold aren't masterpieces themselves per se; but you notice them mostly due to the fact that they aren't screechy pounding screeds. "Diptheria", driven by a nagging, insistent guitar line, is actually almost a gentle ballad, even in the moments where Svenonius cranks the urgency of the vocals up a notch. And "P. Power" is a pretty good near-mainstream rock song, and a highlight of the album.

But overall, while well-received in certain limited quarters, this release did little to increase the band's national profile. Because of the strong local connection, Vinyl Ink played portions of this album as background music in their store for weeks during that summer - so much so that I became heartily sick of the band and anything related to it. I never got into their fanzine, and it was years later that I finally acquired a copy of this disc (Why? Because I'm a music completest, that's why... and I want to have everything associated with a certain genre, time and/or place).

After a while, I got tired of Vinyl Ink's music selections and relatively small inventory, especially after Teenage Gang Debs' publication schedule became more haphazard after 1990's third issue (the 'zine folded after Issue #5, sometime around late 1993). I began spending more of my time and money at Phantasmagoria's more extensive racks. There was also an incident nearby a couple of months later that REALLY put me off going to Silver Spring...

My visits to the record shop usually happened after work in Arlington, so to get to Vinyl Ink I generally drove through the center of the city, then turned north on Georgia Avenue in the Columbia Heights/U Street area, close to Howard University. That area was devastated by the riots that occurred in the wake of Rev. Martin Luther King's assassination in the spring of 1968, and nearly twenty-five years later, the neighborhoods were still struggling to recover. So, not to disparage the place, but it wasn't the safest place to motor through, especially as evening approached. There was a large gas station halfway up Georgia Ave., between Brightwood and Takoma, where I sometimes stopped to get gas. So, one night, I made the trip up to the store, and on my way back down through DC, I stopped at the station, filled up, and went on my way - no worries or issues.

The VERY NEXT NIGHT, a driver with the same make and model as my car stopped at that very same filling station. While there, he was approached by an armed robber. I can't recall if he resisted or not - the news stories didn't make that clear - but he ended up being shot dead.

Same car... same place... 24 hour's difference. Not a big believer in "signs"... but I immediately curtailed my visits to that area.

The original Nation Of Ulysses lineup lasted for another year or so. They released their follow up
album, Plays Pretty For Baby, in October of 1992. But things were not all quiet in their world. During the recording of their sophomore disc, guitarist Kroner left the band. The remaining quartet made a haphazard effort to soldier on, prepping songs for a third album. But the band completely fell apart by the end of 1992 (six songs from these final sessions were finally included on the posthumous 2000 release The Embassy Tapes).

After the breakup, Canty and Gamboa stuck with Svenonius for a couple of short lived bands, Cupid Car Club from 1993 to 1995 and The Make Up from 1995 to 2000. Since then, Svenonius has involved himself with a number of DC-area indie groups and solo projects, with names like Weird War, Chain And The Gang, Too Much and Escape-ism, to name a few. By latest count, over the years he has been involved in or released more than twenty full-length albums and the same number of singles/EPs. As for the remaining former Nation Of Ulysses member Tim Green, he spent a few years on the production/engineering side of recording, before joining the California-based metal band The Fucking Champs, which is still going strong to this day.

The demise of the Washington DC area independent music markets took place slowly over the next decade and a half. Phantasmagoria gave up the ghost in 2001, replaced by a neighborhood cultural center. 12 Inch Dance Records in the Dupont Circle area closed its doors in 2002. After fending off bankruptcy for a number of years, the remaining locations of the once-vast Olsson's Books & Music chain shut down in 2008. But Vinyl Ink was the first to go, closing up for good in 1999. About the only place still left in DC flying the punk/indie flag is Smash Records, originally situated in Georgetown but now with a storefront in Adams-Morgan.

Sassy didn't make it past the '90s either.  After a series of editorial missteps and sale to another publisher that blunted its once-formidable edge, its circulation collapsed, and the magazine folded in 1996.

I still miss those shops, and the music they offered, making it easy at the time to find that left-of-center/quirky release you may have heard on WHFS or the college stations. And I include Vinyl Ink in that long-lamented group. It was a good place, for its time... but apparently some things aren't made to last.

And that includes The Nation Of Ulysses. Again, I personally wasn't a big fan. But they are still revered in certain corners, and several existing bands today (including The Hives, Bikini Kill, Death From Above 1979 and LCD Soundsystem, among others) have cited them as an influence.

So, if you have some residual nostalgia for that time and genre, or just want to hear what was happening in DC's early '90s punk scene, this one's for you: 13-Point Plan To Destroy America, the debut release of Washington's own The Nation Of Ulysses, put out on Dischord Records on July 1st, 1991. Have a listen if you can stand it, 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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Various Artists - Sounds Of The Seventies (1974 & 1975)

An old elementary school classmate of mine died a couple of weeks ago. I can't call him a "friend", per se, but he was an essential presence in my childhood experience.

I've mentioned in previous postings that my Navy officer dad's next duty station after the conclusion of our time in Wisconsin was serving as a professor at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. We arrived there that summer, and settled into a two-story townhouse in military housing across from one of the main academy gates, directly behind the neighborhood pool and adjacent to the neighborhood of West Annapolis.

West Annapolis is about a forty square block area, bounded by Rowe Boulevard to the south, Weems Creek to the west, the Severn River to the north, and government property along its eastern edge. The neighborhood is pretty much cut off from the rest of the city of Annapolis proper due to its proximity to said "government property" - namely, the grounds of the U.S. Naval Academy and the adjacent housing areas for officers and their families stationed there, where I lived. As such, West Annapolis has over the decades developed a somewhat insular, go-it-alone stance among the longtime residents there, not mixing much with regular Annapolitans and maintaining a cool attitude towards the "interloping" military families living just on the other side of the old wooded Baltimore & Annapolis Railroad right-of-way.

However, the young children of area officers had to go to school somewhere. And since the Naval Academy Primary School, a K-through-5 private school located across the Severn at the Naval Station, had limited enrollment, for many years the majority of kids living in Arundel Estates and Perry Circle (the military housing areas) were required to attend local facilities, the first and closest one being West Annapolis Elementary School (WAES). So in 1974, that's where the majority of my siblings and I began our latest academic year.

For the most part, relations between the local youngsters and the relatively more transient military offspring at the school were tranquil. I know that some of the West Annapolis boys and girls considered many from my area as "rich kids" and elitist snobs (believe me, we were most decidedly not!), while some of my Navy acquaintances thought many of the locals were lower-class lowlifes (again, not remotely true). But in those years, that tranquility was constantly being roiled by one boy, Frederick, the Terror of West Annapolis.

Frederick (or "Freddie" as he was more commonly known) was a short, wiry redhead with a fiery temper and rock-hard fists that he seldom hesitated to make use of, if the situation called for it. He was a year behind me in grade; however, for a few years in the early/mid '70s, WAES administration decided to experiment with a new teaching approach whereby instead of having the 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th grades in four separate classrooms, each classroom would contain a combination of ALL FOUR GRADES. So each individual teacher was were forced to provide instruction to all of the learning levels simultaneously, every day - which must have been a nightmare for them. In hindsight, it was a nutty idea, and I don't recall learning very much that year. WAES finally abandoned that practice before the 1970s ended, segregating the grades into separate classrooms, like most other schools in the nation do. But I went to school there through the brunt of this experimental period... and as 'luck' would have it, Freddie was one of my classmates.

Freddie's fearsome reputation, cultivated by classroom and schoolyard incidents that landed him in the Principal's office several times that year, and nurtured by juvenile word-of-mouth, was such that he became, in many of our minds, the pre-teen 'crime boss' and 'bete noire' of West Annapolis. Outside of attending school there, most Navy kids avoided the neighborhood, especially the area close by Freddie's house, lest they run afoul of "Freddie's gang" of area kids he reportedly controlled.

There used to be a little neighborhood store directly across the street from WAES, on the corner of Melvin Avenue and Annapolis Street about a block away from his home, called Waxman's Grocery. Mr. Waxman was the sour and crotchety proprietor of this old-fashioned one-room store, and he seemed to hate kids (many years later, I learned that Mr. Waxman's son, a WAES graduate, had been killed in Vietnam in his teens shortly after arriving over there as a new enlistee in the late 1960s... so it was then I began to understand Mr. Waxman's demeanor and feel some sympathy for him). Despite his cantankerous nature, children flocked to his shop after classes ended for the day, as Mr. Waxman stocked every brand and variety of popular candy then available - Atomic Fireballs, Mike & Ikes, Lemonheads, Pop Rocks, Marathon bars, Chunky Bars, you name it. The store owner was well aware of the individuals who kept him in business. The market was Ground Zero for the local Wacky Packages craze of the mid-70s; students would buy the packs by the dozen, trading the adhesive parody renditions of popular consumer products with others in the school or otherwise sticking them to their school folders and lockers.

Bubble Yum, the first soft chunk bubble gum, was released by LifeSavers (in limited quantities) in the Western U.S. in late 1974, and the company began a gradual national rollout later that year, with the Baltimore/Washington D.C. area serving as an early East Coast test
market. When it initially appeared, it was shipped to only a few stores in our area in very small quantities, and Waxman's Grocery, with its proven track record of moving vast amounts of confectionery product, was one of the stores selected. When Freddie and his boys discovered this, they staked out Waxman's for hours on end, watching for the delivery trucks and, by their presence, "discouraging" (so to speak) non-neighborhood kids from going there. Freddie's gang would buy up every pack of Bubble Yum available, at 30 cents for a pack of five pieces, then take them to school and resell them to children craving the new gum for upwards of fifty cents to a dollar for each individual chunk. Those guys ended up making a small fortune that winter and spring, until increased product distribution and availability put Bubble Yum in more local stores. But for a long while, they were the preteen Gum Mafia.

As much as I've detailed the fearsome, threatening antics and actions of Freddie and his gang here, I did have some normal interactions with him from time to time. More that once, I recall heading over to West Annapolis to hang out and play with him and his friends, and during the winter he and his crew gathered with the Navy kids sledding down Suicide Hill directly adjacent to Perry Circle, the only decent place to slide in the immediate area. In our few playtimes, a sort of detente existed between us, as it does between kids. Still, Freddie would sometimes suggest we do activities that I wasn't comfortable with, such as shoplift sweets at the local 7-11. In those situations, I would demur, then try to quickly and quietly remove myself from his presence and head back home, as the unspoken threat of drawing the ire of "Freddie's gang" was always present.

The mid-70s period was a transitional period for music. AM radio fare, consisting of lite rock, novelty songs and other lightweight fare, still ruled the airwaves, but harder-edged punk, reggae and hard rock music was bubbling just below the surface, ready to break out. Songs that were giant hits and schoolyard favorites during that time included "Up In A Puff Of Smoke" by an obscure (for the U.S.) British singer named Polly Brown:

For some reason, this song was HUGE as WAES - never did much for me, though (in a related story, Polly Brown never had another charting song in America...).

Another massive song from that time was "Billy, Don't Be A Hero" by Bo Donaldson & The Heywoods:

Although the premise was hokey and overly sentimental (a young woman begs her love not to go off to war, but stay and marry her; he goes anyway and, of course, buys the farm in his first battle), this song still went to #1 in America in the summer of 1974, selling nearly four million copies. However, it was hated as much as it was loved, voted No. 8 on Rolling Stone magazine's readers' poll of "10 Worst Songs of the 1970s".

What I didn't know at the time was that this song was a remake of a British hit from earlier that year. Bo Donaldson & The Heywoods were an obscure group of journeymen from Ohio who hadn't had much success in the prior ten years of their music career, until they glommed on to "Billy, Don't Be A Hero", originally penned by a British group, Paper Lace, who took their version to the top of the UK charts just three months prior. Understandably pissed at seeing their thunder and stateside glory stolen by Bo Donaldson et al., Paper Lace quickly released their follow-up single, which made it to US #1 six weeks later that midsummer, the group's first (and only) American hit - "The Night Chicago Died":

Children couldn't get enough of songs like this back then!

The potential menace of Freddie and his gang overall did little to affect the fun times I had living there in Annapolis.  There was a great group of kids on my street and up the hill in Perry Circle, and we were a close-knit bunch.  We would all hang together at the pool on warm days, playing Marco Polo and basking in the sun.  The winters were marked by building huge snow forts, from which we would choose sides and have intense snowball fights.  There were birthday parties, slumber parties, football games, and expeditions into the restricted areas near Shady Lake or through the old Civil Defense tunnels and shelters under the apartments.  During the holiday season, we would practice Christmas carols together, then put together a chorus and go door to door singing to our neighbors.  Or we would head over across the street through the Naval Academy gates, to play baseball on the diamonds there, hang out on the platforms and structures of the old Academy obstacle course on Hospital Point, or try to sneak into the "Midshipmen/Authorized Staff Only" areas throughout the Yard.  

After years of requests, I was finally awarded the paper route in my neighborhood, delivering the Evening Capital each night after I got home from school (I was one of the paper's youngest newsboys).  I worked that route like a dog, doubling the subscriptions on my street inside of a few months, and by Christmas that year I was making a fortune (well, a relative fortune for a preteen in the 1970s).  The Evening Capital provided me with a few extra over-the-shoulder newsbags, and there were always a few extra papers in my stack each day.  So with them, my friends and I devised a game called Dogfight: each of us would have a bag filled with newspapers tightly wrapped with rubber bands, then we would get on our bikes and ride circles around each other in a big field, whipping papers at other riders to see who we could knock off!  Sounds kinda brutal now... but it was a very fun, looked-forward-to activity, and I never recall anyone getting seriously hurt.

Great memories. 

Freddie and I weren't close friends, only casual acquaintances at best, and I didn't keep in close contact with him after I left elementary school and moved on to Bates Junior High across town the next year. I would, however, continue to hear stories about him from some of my younger friends who still attended WAES - from all reports, his attitude and demeanor didn't change an iota. And after my family left Maryland in the late 1970s, he all but completely faded off of my radar. I learned more about him in recent years through my contact via Facebook with his older brother, who I didn't know at all back during my Annapolis childhood but got to know later. Through him, I learned that after Freddie left high school, he served a short stint as an enlisted Navy man, then quickly returned to the Annapolis area, where for decades he worked as a local handyman and house painter.

My lone interaction with Freddie since the end of our school days together occurred a couple of years ago, when I repeated to his brother a funny (and probably apocryphal) story about a practical joke Freddie reputedly played on one of his West Annapolis cronies, that quickly made the schoolyard rounds. Freddie fired off a blistering response through his brother's thread, angrily denying the legend and castigating me up and down for even INSINUATING that it was true. Mind you, I was retelling the tale of a harmless and minor childhood prank that allegedly occurred... but still, almost fifty years later, it managed to set him off. Apparently, some things - and some people - never change. Freddie's brother is friendly, stable and accomplished, and managed to put together a pretty good life for himself and his family - in other words, the complete opposite of Freddie.

So, as such, I don't have any particularly deep feeling of loss regarding Freddie's demise - he was a bully, and sort of a dick, and from all reports and indications remained so up to his dying day.  I wasn't the only one with this reaction; for decades, I've remained in close contact with several of my old Arundel Estates childhood friends. Their feelings on Freddie's death can be summarized in a single comment one of them made to me: "He was the 'bogeyman' for a lot of kids back then." Can't really refute that assessment.

With that being said, Freddie was an integral part of that fondly remembered time and place in my life, and his presence and actions have done little to obscure the happy times I recall living in Annapolis as a child (prior to my return there as a Naval Academy midshipmen almost a decade later). If anything, Freddie was like a grain of sand in an oyster shell - an irritant whose presence still ended up creating something lasting and cherished.

So, in honor of his passing, and in homage to that time, here are a few music compilations from that period that will give you a sense of what was being listened to in the mid-70s. These are part of a forty-volume(!) series of recordings released by Time-Life Music between 1989 and 1999, covering the entirety of the 1970s. I only picked up a few of these, since I had other compilations that covered this same general time period. But the ones provided here, covering 1974 and 1975, are an excellent summation of music from that time.

In case you're wondering, here's the lineup:

Sounds Of The Seventies: 1974:

1. Can't Get Enough – Bad Company
2. Show and Tell – Al Wilson
3. Come and Get Your Love – Redbone
4. I Shot the Sheriff – Eric Clapton
5. Help Me – Joni Mitchell
6. I Can Help – Billy Swan
7. Sha-La-La (Make Me Happy) – Al Green
8. Rock the Boat – The Hues Corporation
9. Bennie and the Jets – Elton John
10. Midnight Rider – Gregg Allman
11. Sweet Home Alabama – Lynyrd Skynyrd
12. The Loco-Motion – Grand Funk Railroad
13. Smokin' in the Boys' Room – Brownsville Station
14. Rikki Don't Lose That Number – Steely Dan
15. Rock On – David Essex
16. Midnight at the Oasis – Maria Muldaur
17. Kung Fu Fighting – Carl Douglas
18. Keep on Smilin' – Wet Willie
19. Then Came You – Dionne Warwick & The Spinners
20. The Bitch Is Back – Elton John

Sounds Of The Seventies: 1974 - Take Two:

1. Lookin' for a Love – Bobby Womack
2. You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet – Bachman-Turner Overdrive
3. The Joker – Steve Miller Band
4. Until You Come Back to Me (That's What I'm Gonna Do) – Aretha Franklin
5. Can't Get Enough of Your Love, Babe – Barry White
6. Mockingbird – Carly Simon with James Taylor
7. I've Got to Use My Imagination – Gladys Knight & The Pips
8. Sundown – Gordon Lightfoot
9. Everlasting Love – Carl Carlton
10. Shinin' On – Grand Funk Railroad
11. Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo – Rick Derringer
12. Takin' Care of Business – Bachman-Turner Overdrive
13. Rock Your Baby – George McCrae
14. Sideshow – Blue Magic
15. Haven't Got Time for the Pain – Carly Simon
16. Tin Man – America
17. Dancing Machine – Jackson Five
18. Jungle Boogie – Kool & the Gang
19. Nothing from Nothing – Billy Preston
20. I'll Have to Say I Love You in a Song – Jim Croce
21. Radar Love – Golden Earring

Sounds Of The Seventies: 1975:

1. You're No Good – Linda Ronstadt
2. Jackie Blue – Ozark Mountain Daredevils
3. That's the Way (I Like It) – KC & the Sunshine Band
4. Must of Got Lost – J. Geils Band
5. Why Can't We Be Friends? – War
6. Sister Golden Hair – America
7. Philadelphia Freedom – Elton John
8. Black Water – Doobie Brothers
9. Love Is a Rose – Linda Ronstadt
10. How Long – Ace
11. Dance with Me – Orleans
12. Free Bird – Lynyrd Skynyrd
13. You Are So Beautiful – Joe Cocker
14. Feel Like Makin' Love – Bad Company
15. Lady Marmalade – Labelle
16. Pick Up the Pieces – Average White Band
17. Island Girl – Elton John
18. Some Kind of Wonderful – Grand Funk Railroad
19. The Hustle – Van McCoy & Soul City Symphony
20. Let's Do It Again – Staple Singers

Sounds Of The Seventies: 1975 - Take Two:

1. When Will I Be Loved – Linda Ronstadt
2. Bad Time – Grand Funk Railroad
3. Roll On Down the Highway – Bachman-Turner Overdrive
4. Movin' On – Bad Company
5. Take Me in Your Arms (Rock Me a Little While) – The Doobie Brother
6. They Just Can't Stop It (The Games People Play) – The Spinners
7. L-O-V-E (Love) – Al Green
8. Shining Star – Earth, Wind & Fire
9. Get Down Tonight – KC & the Sunshine Band
10. I'm on Fire – Dwight Twilley
11. SOS – ABBA
12. Shame, Shame, Shame – Shirley & Company
13. Cut the Cake – Average White Band
14. You're the First, the Last, My Everything – Barry White
15. Low Rider – War
16. Fight the Power (Part 1 & 2) – Isley Brothers
17. Bungle in the Jungle – Jethro Tull
18. Only Women Bleed – Alice Cooper
19. Can't Get It Out of My Head – Electric Light Orchestra
20. Poetry Man – Phoebe Snow
21. I'm Not in Love – 10CC

Enjoy these discs, released in 1990 and 1991 (for the "Take Two" versions), and as always, let me know what you think.

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• Various Artists - Sounds Of The Seventies: 1974: Send Email
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Various Artists - Until The End Of The World (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

I was saddened to learn of the death in Pittsfield, Massachusetts last week of singer and actress Julee Cruise. About four years ago, she announced that she was suffering from systemic lupus, a painful autoimmune condition that left her depressed and unable to move and walk. Reports state that she took her own life at her home, with The B-52's song "Roam" playing as she died (Cruise was a touring member of The B-52's in the early 1990s, replacing Cindy Wilson who took a few years off to raise her children; I remember seeing her on stage at a band show I attended in Washington, DC during that period).

In a post I wrote almost a dozen years ago, I detailed how I first came across Cruise's music and my impressions regarding it - the melancholy, haunting quality that both repels and attracts the listener. After the release of her debut album Floating Into The Night in 1989, Cruise issued a follow-up, The Voice Of Love, four years later. As with the first album, almost all of the songs on her sophomore release were written by director David Lynch and composer Angelo Badalamenti, so the sound and atmosphere are remarkably similar to Floating Into The Night. The Voice Of Love is more of a continuation of her debut, rather than a stand-alone entity. If you liked the first, than this one will be right up your alley as well.

Between these two albums, Cruise recorded a Lynch/Badalamenti-modified cover of an old Elvis Presley song, "Summer Kisses, Winter Tears", for the soundtrack to Wim Wenders' scifi drama Until The End Of The World, starring William Hurt. The plot of the film had something to do with in a finding and using a device that can record visual experiences and visualize dreams... but the end result was so confusing and convoluted that the few people who DID go to see the movie were left flummoxed by it. Cashing in on his success with small, cerebral films like Paris, Texas and Wings Of Desire, Wenders managed to secure a budget of $22 million for this latest film, an amount more than the cost of all of his previous films combined. And he proceeded to spend every penny of that money, spreading his production over almost half a year with setups in 11 countries.

While Graeme Revell (co-founder of the Australian industrial band SPK) was commissioned to compose the movie theme and other incidental music for the film, Wenders asked a number of his favorite recording artists (including Cruise) to contribute songs as well for inclusion. For their selections, he asked them to anticipate the kind of music they would be making a decade later, when the film was set. It was Wenders' desire to use every song he received to its fullest extent that ultimately contributed to the overall length of the film. The initial cut was reportedly TWENTY HOURS long, from which the director and producer whittled down to a more standard running time versions of 2 1/2 and 3 hours (which Wenders called the "Reader's Digest" versions). There is also reportedly a five-hour "director's" cut of this film which has been screened at various festivals over the years.

...Not that any of that mattered. The truncated versions of Until The End Of The World were released to theaters, first in Germany in September 1991, and later in the U.S. that December, and overall the flick was a commercial failure, managing to gross only about $830,000 against its $22 million budget.  Critics at the time savaged it; Roger Ebert gave the film 2 stars out of 4, describing it as lacking the "narrative urgency" required to sustain interest in the story, and wrote that it "plays like a film that was photographed before it was written, and edited before it was completed". He went on to say that a documentary about the globe-trekking production would likely have been more interesting than the film itself.  Other reviewers were even less kind.

But while the film flopped, the soundtrack was, frankly, amazing, featuring great songs by some of the top alternative performers of the day.  Wenders chose well.  Here's the soundtrack lineup:

1. "Opening Title" – Graeme Revell
2. "Sax and Violins" – Talking Heads
3. "Summer Kisses, Winter Tears" – Julee Cruise
4. "Move with Me (Dub)" – Neneh Cherry
5. "The Adversary" – Crime & the City Solution
6. "What's Good" – Lou Reed
7. "Last Night Sleep" – Can
8. "Fretless" – R.E.M.
9. "Days" – Elvis Costello
10. "Claire's Theme" – Graeme Revell
11. "(I'll Love You) Till the End of the World" – Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
12. "It Takes Time" – Patti Smith (with Fred Smith)
13. "Death's Door" – Depeche Mode
14. "Love Theme" – Graeme Revell
15. "Calling All Angels" (Remix Version) – Jane Siberry with k.d. lang
16. "Humans from Earth" – T Bone Burnett
17. "Sleeping in the Devil's Bed" – Daniel Lanois
18. "Until the End of the World" – U2
19. "Finale" – Graeme Revell

Personal favorites on this disc, in additon to the Julee Cruise song, include R.E.M.'s "Fretless", Depeche Mode's "Death's Door" and the Jane Siberry/k.d.lang collaboration "Calling All Angels".  At the time, most of these songs were unavailable anywhere else, making the compilation a gold mine of rarities. All in all, the soundtrack did better than the movie, eventually reaching #114 on the U.S. Billboard Top 200 Albums chart in 1992.

So, in honor of the life and art of Julee Cruise, I proudly offer to you all Until The End Of The World (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack), released on Warner Brothers Records on December 10th, 1991.  Enjoy, and as always... well, you know.

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2021 In Memorium - #2: Everett Morton (Born 1950)

RIP to Everett Morton, drummer for the classic '80s ska revival band The Beat (known more familiarly in the States as The English Beat), who died last October 8th at the age of 71.  His innovative, syncopated drumming anchored the band through three studio album releases (1980's Special Beat Service, 1981's Wha'ppen, and 1982's I Just Can't Stop It) and innumerable live appearances up to the group's breakup in 1983.  Afterwards, Morton teamed up with former group member Saxa (on saxophone, obviously) and new vocalist Tony Beet to form The International Beat, releasing a album, The Hitting Line, in 1991, followed by Dance Hall Rockers in 1996.  Even after the demise of his original band, Morton stayed friendly with former Beat frontman Ranking Roger (Roger produced and participated on The International Beat's first album), and in later years the two performed as a version of the original Beat all across the UK, up until Roger's death in 2019.

Back in the day, The English Beat was one of my mainstay ska revival bands (along with The Specials and Madness).  I aurally devoured any and everything they put out, and recall being bitterly disappointed when I heard of the group's demise... so much so that for years afterward, I avidly followed the former members of the old band in their new projects.  For a while in the mid-80s, I was a fan of Fine Young Cannibals (guitarist Andy Cox and bassist David Steele's pop/rock/jazz project with vocalist Roland Gift), whose music was a far cry from the Beat's ska beat.  In 1984, I bought All The Rage, the debut album of General Public, vocalists Ranking Roger and Dave Wakeling's post-breakup band (with Mick Jones from The Clash and Horace Panter from The Specials).  And in the early 90's, I never missed an opportunity to see Special Beat, an amalgamation of members of the two ska revival giants, whenever they played Washington, DC (as I've mentioned long ago...).

But somehow, I missed out on The International Beat's music until long after its release.  I must say I enjoy this album very much.  Its sound is closer to the softer, poppier Wha'ppen-era Beat music, rather than the harder, straight-ahead ska sound of the band's debut album.  But that is not to say that The Hitting Line is without merit.  In my opinion, of all the post-breakup releases, Morton and Saxa's album comes the closest to replicating the old English Beat vibe.

But here - judge for yourself.  In honor of the life and work of Mr. Everett Morton, I proudly offer you all The Hitting Line Crosses The Border, Dojo Records' 1992 rerelease (with bonus tracks) of The International Beat's original debut album, The Hitting Line, from the prior year on Triple X Records.  This will be a welcome addition to your ska revival collection!  

In any event, have a listen, and as always, let me know what you think.

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The Clash - Clash On Broadway (The Interviews)

Here's a Leap Day quickie (and a way for me to keep up my monthly quota of posts as well . . .): a disc of interviews of various members of The Clash, put together as a promotion for the 1991 release of the Clash On Broadway compilation. These interviews, conducted by former band manager/associate Kosmo Vinyl in New York City and London in late 1991, provides info on the origins and operations, stresses and successes of the group from the 'horse's mouths' themselves. Mick Jones, Joe Strummer and Paul Simonon detail their thoughts and inspirations behind some of the most important and popular Clash songs. While there is mostly just talk on this disc, there IS some music on here as well.

Here's the track lineup:

1. Interview (Mick Jones on the beginnings of The Clash)
2. Interview (Joe Strummer on the beginnings of The Clash)
3. Interview (Mick Jones on the beginnings of The Clash)
4. Interview (Paul Simonon on the beginnings of The Clash)
5. Interview (Mick Jones on the beginnings of The Clash)
6. Interview (Paul Simonon on the beginnings of The Clash)
7. Interview (Joe Strummer on the beginnings of The Clash)
8. Interview (Mick Jones on the beginnings of The Clash)
9. Interview (Joe Strummer on the beginnings of The Clash)
10. Interview (Mick Jones on the beginnings of The Clash)
11. White Riot
12. Interview (Paul Simonon; Joe Strummer; Mick Jones; on the transition from Terry Chimes to Topper Headon as Clash Drummer, and the writing of the song Complete Control)
13. Complete Control
14. Interview (Mick Jones; Joe Strummer on writing (White Man) In Hammersmith Palais)
15. White Man In Hammersmith Palais
16. Interview (Joe Strummer on the inspiration for Julie's Working For The Drug Squad)
17. Julie's Been Working For The Drug Squad
18. Interview (Paul Simonon; Joe Strummer on writing One Emotion)
19. One Emotion
20. Interview (Joe Strummer; Mick Jones on covering the song I Fought The Law)
21. I Fought The Law (Live)
22. Interview (Mick Jones; Paul Simonon; Joe Strummer on writing the song and album London Calling)
23. London Calling
24. Interview (Joe Strummer; Mick Jones on writing Lost In The Supermarket)
25. Lost In The Supermarket
26. Interview (Paul Simonon on writing The Guns Of Brixton)
27. The Guns Of Brixton
28. Interview (Paul Simonon; Mick Jones on writing Train In Vain)
29. Train In Vain
30. Interview (Joe Strummer on writing Rock The Casbah)
31. Rock The Casbah
32. Interview (Mick Jones; Joe Strummer; Paul Simonon on writing Should I Stay Or Should I Go)
33. Should I Stay Or Should I Go
34. Interview (Paul Simonon, Mick Jones; Joe Strummer on recording Every Little Bit Hurts)
35. Every Little Bit Hurts
36. Interview (Mick Jones; Paul Simonon; Joe Strummer on the legacy of The Clash)

I ran this one down only a couple of years back, in my constant search for any and all noises related to The Clash. I had no idea it existed prior to then, else I would have acquired it at the same time I bought the compilation all those years ago. This mostly-interview disc may not be everyone's cup of tea, but I always find it interesting to know a band's roots, and how/why they came up with their hit songs. This album is a great complement to the original box set and the Clash On Broadway (The Outtakes, a.k.a. Disc 4) I posted earlier. If you have any interest in the history of The Clash, this is a must-have.

So here for your edification and listening pleasure, is Clash On Broadway (The Interviews), released by Epic Records in late 1991.  Enjoy, and as always, let me know what you think.

Happy Leap Day!

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Billie Holiday - The Complete Decca Recordings (2-Disc Set)

What can purge my heart
Of the song
And the sadness?
What can purge my heart
But the song
Of the sadness?
What can purge my heart
Of the sadness
Of the song?

Do not speak of sorrow
With dust in her hair,
Or bits of dust in eyes
A chance wind blows there.
The sorrow that I speak of
Is dusted with despair.

Voice of muted trumpet,
Cold brass in warm air.
Bitter television blurred
By sound that shimmers–
Where?

- Langston Hughes, Song For Billie Holiday

Billie Holiday would have turned 100 years old today.

Holiday lived a life filled with degradation, suffering, harassment, tragedy and abuse of body and mind (by others and herself), and died of cirrhosis of the liver and pulmonary edema, nearly flat broke and handcuffed to her bed (she was arrested by the New York City police for drug possession as she lay dying) in a Harlem hospital on July 17th, 1959, barely 44 years old. Despite her short life, she left an incredible body of work. And even more than half a century after her death, she is still considered one of the most innovative and influential voices ever in popular music.

Billie recorded her last sides with Columbia Records in late 1942. By the fall of 1943, the label had dumped her, failing to renew her contract and ending a decade-long partnership that made Columbia a lot of money and Holiday a star. Despite the mutual benefits of their business relationship, relations between Holiday and the label had been strained since 1939, when Columbia refused to let her record her then-current show-stopper during her residency at New York's Cafe Society, the anti-lynching protest song "Strange Fruit". The best the label would do was allow Holiday to record the song on Milt Gabler's Commodore Records

label. The record, released with "Fine and Mellow" on the flip, was a huge hit for her and Commodore, and Billie and Milt became fast friends.

Gabler joined Decca Records as an A&R man in late 1941, but continued to run Commodore under a special arrangement he made with the head of Decca, Jack Kapp - as long as Commodore stuck to jazz records and didn't try to encroach into Decca's market with pop recordings, Milt was good to go. After Holiday got dropped by Columbia, she went to Gabler to see if she could record again with him on his jazz label. Milt quickly agreed, recalling the success they had with "Strange Fruit". He was looking forward to recording another half-dozen jazz singles with her over the next year.

But one night soon after their agreement, Gabler walked into the New York club where Billie was performing, and heard her belting out "Lover Man (Where Can You Be)?" He said later that he knew instantly that the song would be a smash hit, but he also knew that if he recorded it on Commodore, he would lose his job at Decca, since the tune was clearly more pop-oriented than most of Holiday's Columbia releases. In a bind, he did what he thought was the best thing for the song and Holiday's career - he convinced Decca to sign her as a pop artist.

Billie signed on with the label on August 7th, 1944, an exclusive one-year contract for a minimum of twelve sides, with an additional one-year extension option by the label. Holiday got plenty in return for this contract. At that time, Decca was the only major label still producing commercial recordings (In 1942, the American Federation of Musicians, led by their union president James Petrillo, had gone on strike against all of the other major American labels over royalty payments - the final label holdouts, RCA Victor and Columbia, didn't settle with the union until late 1944). In addition, for the first time Billie Holiday was treated as an artist of stature; the symbol of that stature was something that few recording artists at the time were provided - for her first sessions at Decca on October 4th, 1944, Holiday was backed by a full string ensemble. She was so overwhelmed with joy by the sight of them when she walked into the studio that day that she immediately walked out to compose herself. "Lover Man" was the first side she and her new label cut.

Holiday had several recording sessions with Decca from late 1944 to early 1947, recording mostly torch songs and pop standards that were very well received. By 1947, she was one of the most popular and celebrated recording artists in America, with an income from royalties (for the first time in her career, Holiday would receive royalties for her recordings with Decca) exceeding $100,000 in 1946. However, in May 1947, Billie was busted for narcotics possession in New York City. The trial shortly thereafter was a farce - she was sick and dehydrated, and discovered as she stumbled into the courtroom that the attorney she hired to represent her had abandoned her. Even the prosecuting attorney came to her defense. Even so, Holiday was sentenced to a year in federal prison in West Virginia.

When Billie was released from prison in early 1948, she and others were worried that her career was over. Her manager arranged a comeback concert for her at New York's Carnegie Hall, but no one was sure if people would turn out to hear a convicted drug felon who hadn't had a huge hit since "Lover Man" more than two years earlier. But the Carnegie Hall concert,

held on March 27th, 1948, was a tremendous success, and reestablished Holiday as a major artist. She continued recording with Decca through 1950; a number of her songs were minor hits during that time in terms of sales, but, due to her unsavory reputation in some quarters, were little heard on the radio. Holiday's relationship with Decca ended later that year.

I purchased this set at the same time I bought Lady Day: The Complete Billie Holiday on Columbia 1933-1944, at the record store in Newark, Delaware all those years ago. Some music critics have tended to disparage Holiday's Decca output, considering her body of work there syrupy and lacking the power or nuance of her jazz and blues recordings with Columbia. But I tend to disagree. The Decca recordings show a different, more accessible side of Holiday's artistry, and prove that she was strikingly adept at more than one genre of music. Several of her Decca tunes, including the aforementioned "Lover Man", "Good Morning Heartache", "Big Stuff", and "You Better Go Now", are just as classic and celebrated today as her Columbia sides.

In all of her recordings, Billie Holiday imparted the joy, heartbreak, elation and sadness of love and life, and found ways to express the inexpressible, time and time again. She remains a towering figure in popular music.

Billie Holiday’s burned voice
had as many shadows as lights,
a mournful candelabra against a sleek piano,
the gardenia her signature under that ruined face.

(Now you’re cooking, drummer to bass,
magic spoon, magic needle.
Take all day if you have to
with your mirror and your bracelet of song.)

Fact is, the invention of women under siege
has been to sharpen love in the service of myth.

If you can’t be free, be a mystery.

- Rita Dove, Canary

Here, on the centennial of the birth of the great Billie Holiday, one of my all-time favorite artists, I proudly offer to you The Complete Decca Recordings, released October 1st, 1991 by Decca Records, a two-disc set containing all fifty sides and alternate takes of songs she recorded with the label from 1944 to 1950. Have a listen and remember this great lady. And as always, let me know what you think.

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