The Red Hot Chili Peppers - The Plasma Shaft

A moment of silence, please, for the old Echo Records store in Christchurch, New Zealand.

Back in the day, Echo was the greatest record store in all of New Zealand, in my estimation. When I lived in Christchurch, the shop was located in the Cashel Mall area on High Street, facing the now soon-to-be-demolished Hotel Grand Chancellor. Echo always had a great stock available of indie/alternative CDs from U.S. and British bands, and their local music selection (stuff like JPS Experience, Tall Dwarfs, The Clean, Chris Knox, etc.) was superb. There was another record store, Galaxy Records, further down High Street, only a few doors away. Galaxy generally had cheaper stuff available. But in terms of size and selection, Echo ran circles around this other shop. I didn't purchase many tunes in New Zealand; I've mentioned before in previous posts how ridiculously expensive CDs were in Christchurch. I preferred to buy the discs I wanted during my visits back to the States or over to Australia. But whenever I did want or need something, Echo was the venue of choice.

They used to have a frequent purchasers promotion there, that came with a little card you got punched every time you bought a full-priced album; after ten purchases, the eleventh album was free. Shortly before I left New Zealand for the first time in 1995 for grad school in Virginia, I found that I needed only two more buys to get my free CD. So, about ten days before the movers came to box up my stuff, I went downtown for my last visit to Echo.

I went into the record store with one goal in mind - I wanted Nirvana's MTV Unplugged In New York, released in November of the previous year to rave reviews, to be my free album. Other than that, I had no real idea of what else I wanted, or really any real desire to get anything else. But I hated the thought of being on the cusp of receiving my 'free' music and leaving it on the table (yeah, yeah, I know that 'free' is disingenuous, since you had to buy something to get it - but, still . . .). So I started browsing the stacks, looking for stuff even remotely interesting. I recalled recently hearing and enjoying on the University of Canterbury's indie radio station RDU the song "Diamond Shine", a cut by the New Zealand band The Clean (which had recently reformed). So I went looking for that album, 

Vehicle, and quickly found it. One down, one to go. But the second one to complete my set of ten was going to be tougher. I started running through the stack alphabetically, hoping something would jump out at me.

I got to the "R"s, and into the Red Hot Chili Peppers rack. Now, when the Chili Peppers first came on the scene, I thought they were the Second Coming. The first I'd ever heard of that band was on Christmas Day, 1984, when I saw the video for "True Men Don't Kill Coyotes" on MTV, and practically levitated off of my chair - they were THAT awe-inspiring. I woke up early the day after Christmas and drove through a snowstorm to the local record shop to pick up a cassette copy of their first album, featuring that song. I played that album to death, and initially became a devoted fan. Over the next couple of years, I picked up their follow-up albums (Freaky Styley (1985) and The Uplift Mofo Party Plan (1987)) practically the moment they came out.

But I quickly began to notice that, beginning with Freaky Styley, the RHCP began to sound a litte repetitive and formulaic to me. On their first album, the band put out what, in my mind, was a very original and exciting sound - hard rockin', with a big dollop of punk and a measured dose of funk mixed in. With Freaky Styley, and especially on The Uplift Mofo Party Plan, the band seemed to radically skew that blend, heavily emphasizing the funk sound to the detriment of everything else (I guess the move to heavier funk on the former album should have been any surprise, considering that it was produced by legendary funkmeister George Clinton). I didn't want to give up on them, and I tried really hard to like the latter album. But songs like "Fight Like A Brave" and "Funky Crime" just sounded tired and contrived, and did nothing to draw me in or retain my interest. In my opinion, the Chili Peppers were trying too hard to be something they weren't, and it was a turn-off. By the late 1980s, I had pretty much thrown in the towel on the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Of course now, looking back, I see that I made a mistake in writing them off so early. Their very next album, Mother's Milk, was the record that really began the Chili Peppers' ascent into superstardom, a rise completed by 1991's Blood Sugar Sex Magik, in many ways their artistic and commercial peak. I missed out on pretty much all of that as it was happening, since I had all but written the band off years earlier. But the thing about good music is that, sooner or later, it makes itself known to you. By the mid-1990s, songs from BSSM (such as "Breaking The Girl", "Give It Away" and "Under The Bridge") were in heavy rotation on radio stations around the globe, and by then even I couldn't avoid hearing them and acknowledging the greatness of this music.

So in Echo that day, I decided to get my own copy of Blood Sugar Sex Magik. I picked up the standard CD copy in the bin, and noticed a black, red and blue box directly behind it. It was for something called The Plasma Shaft, a "Special Limited Edition" two-CD set that included not only a copy of BSSM, but also an additional CD containing eight songs, including "Soul To Squeeze" (another RHCP song I'd recently heard and enjoyed as well). The price for the special edition was about NZ$35.00 (about US$20.00 at the time - I told you these friggin' things were expensive in New Zealand), slightly more than the regular BSSM copy (priced at NZ$29.00). I figured what the heck, that was a good deal for some extra songs, so I put down the disc I had and picked up The Plasma Shaft instead. That made ten (finally). I gathered up a copy of the Nirvana album on my way to the register, paid for my music, and vamoosed - my very last visit to a fine music store.

A few years ago, Echo was bought by a North Island record store chain called Real Groovy, and moved to a new location on Manchester Street. The new location was badly damaged by the February earthquake, so much so that at the end of March, the company put out a press release stating that the store would not reopen. A sad and unexpected end to a city icon. I wish the employees and customers all the best in the future, and want to just say 'thanks' for hooking me up with so much good music when I was there.

I owned this double-disc set for years before I learned that The Plasma Shaft was considered to be a Chili Peppers rarity. Apparently, this set was only released in Australia and Japan in 1994, and has never seen the light of day in the States. It has been out of print for many years; copies regularly sell for $50 to $100.

I'm not going to bother providing Blood Sugar Sex Magik, the first part of the set, here. I'm sure that should be easy enough to track down. Here, however, is the second part, containing hard-to-find outtakes and B-sides from the BSSM sessions, including "Soul To Squeeze", one of the all-time great Chili Peppers songs.

 Enjoy, and as always, let me know what you think:

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Love Tractor - This Ain't No Outerspace Ship

As you can probably tell from my posts, I was (and am) a big fan of the old Athens sound, beginning with the B-52's and R.E.M., and branching out to less-well-known but still vital bands from that era like Pylon, Oh-OK and Buzz of Delight. Love Tractor was an Athens band that appeared very late on my radar, probably because what they were initially into was a bit removed from the other local bands of that time.

The band was formed in April 1980 by two local guitarists, Mike Richmond and Mark Cline, more as a way to alleviate the boredom of living in the one-horse town Athens was back then, rather than creating/joining a new musical movement. The two began gigging around Athens as a duo, accompanied at first by a drum machine. But along the way, they began adding members on bass and keyboards, and shed the drum machine for a succession of flesh-and-blood drummers (including, briefly, a pre-R.E.M. Bill Berry) before settling on Kit Schwartz behind the kit.

The major difference that set Love Tractor apart from the other bands vying for stage time at the 40 Watt Club and Tyrone's back then was in their sound - Love Tractor was a TOTALLY instrumental folk-rock band; no vocals whatsoever in their performances.

Now, I'll be honest, with very few exceptions, instrumental bands bore the shit out of me. Instrumental rock is no picnic in itself, but of all the genres, instrumental jazz ensembles have got to be the worst and most ennui-inducing for me. For example, I've recently been frequenting a local Cuban restaurant here in a sketchy part of town that features great food, dirt-cheap beer and some of the best, most eclectic live music performances in the city every weekend. In the couple of months I've been a regular at this place, I've been treated to superb groups offering up rock, big band, world music [quick shout-out on this one: the excellent band I saw there under this genre, Copal, came all the way from Brooklyn to our little burg, and featured a stunning redhead fronting the band on violin(!) and a weirdly hypnotic classical/Middle Eastern/gypsy/hip-hop sound - if that sounds like something you'd be into, run, do not walk, and pick up their latest, Into The Shadow Garden], what have you.

However, the worst band I saw there was a couple of weeks ago, when I went to the restaurant for a bite to eat and a couple of drinks. I got there fairly early in the evening, and while I ate I watched the band set up - just a quartet of nondescript young guys, sporting the apparently de rigueur look of torn jeans and scraggly post-secondary school goatees. I was looking forward to some decent music, but these guys completely disappointed me. Their entire set consisted of fifteen-twenty minute-long meandering "jazz explorations", with each player seemingly just doing his own thing. There was no visible connection/acknowledgement between the players, and as such, their music did nothing to draw the audience in. After a very short while, their music moved from boring to annoying, and I fled the venue much earlier that usual.

So, I can sort of imagine what Love Tractor was facing during their early years of playing in Athens. Cline has admitted in interviews that his was never "the most marketable band". With its shows, the band never really built up the sort of buzz and mythology that surrounds the early efforts of the B-52s (i.e., the legendary Valentine's Day party) or R.E.M. (practicing in the abandoned church). It seems that they were more admired than loved in town.

It took a while for them to find a recording contract, but Love Tractor was finally signed to DB Records in 1982. They released their first album, an all instrumental self-titled effort, later that year. Love Tractor received decent reviews, but sold poorly. For their second DB Records album, 1984's Till The Cows Come Home, the band began experimenting with actual words, adding a couple of songs with lead vocals by Richmond.

The relative success of this record, coupled with DB Records' increasingly shaky financial posture, led to the band's move to the larger Big Time Records (America) label in 1986. Their first release on their new label was 1987's This Ain't No Outerspace Ship. This album was Love Tractor's first full-scale foray into vocal rock, and in my opinion they pull it off with great success. Their sound on this record can be described as sort of a funkier R.E.M., with Richmond's twangy voice well suited to songs such as "Beatle Boots" and "Outside With Ma".

As fortune would have it, I moved to Athens shortly after this album came out, and the record was being championed by WUOG, the local independent college station. They played "Outside With Ma" to death, so much so that I fell in love with it. If I recall correctly, I bought this album on vinyl at either the Wuxtry, the famous local record shop, or at the local college co-op/music store located just down the street. It wasn't until years later that I replaced my vinyl copy with a CD version.

Love Tractor released one more album on Big Time, 1989's Themes From Venus, before breaking up later that year. The band members went on to join several other bands, but they all remained friends, and every year or so they would all get together in Athens to reconnect and write songs together. Seven years after breaking up, they reformed, and after touring around the country for several years, released a reunion record, The Sky At Night, on Razor & Tie in 2001.  They broke up again shortly afterwards.

So, here's what in my opinion is Love Tractor's best album, This Ain't No Outerspace Ship from 1987 (distributed by RCA). Be sure to check out their covers of Marvin Gaye's "Got To Give It Up" and The Gap Band's "Party Train"! Enjoy, and let me know what you think.

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Thomas Mapfumo & The Blacks Unlimited - Corruption

Looking back at some of these posts, it's amazing how much of the music I enjoy was discovered on road trips to/from the casino tables in Connecticut and New Jersey (OK, so I'm a degenerate gambler - what can you do?). Here's another artist I came across during one of those trips.

I was on my way back from Atlantic City during the spring of 1992, a fairly lucrative year for me up until then. At the time, I had reached a fairly proficient level of expertise at blackjack, and had expanded my gambling repertoire a couple of years earlier to include craps, a game with only slightly worse odds than blackjack, but demanding a heck of a lot less concentration from a player [in blackjack, to reduce the house edge, it was necessary to 'count cards'; that is, keep track of certain cards as they come into play, in order to maximize your advantage when the remaining deck is rich in higher-ranking cards (tens, face cards and aces). Done right, it's very profitable - but it's hard friggin' work]. That winter, I'd been hitting places like Caesar's and the old Atlantis casino and cleaning up. Suffice to say that I was eager to visit A.C. as much as possible that year, to keep my winning streak going.

This latest trip was no different from the rest, although it started out on a down note. I made about $150 playing blackjack at Ballys, then on a whim, walked next door to the old Claridge House Casino (at the time, the smallest casino in Atlantic City - it has since been purchased and folded into the Ballys organization) to try my hand at their craps tables. The Claridge had long been a bad-luck spot for me; I don't recall ever having a winning session in the place, and as such, I tended to avoid the facility during my trips to the city. I guess that this time, I wanted to see if my luck from the place next door would carry over there.

In a word, it didn't. I got ripped for about $350 in record time on Claridge's cursed dice tables, before I wised up and staggered out of the joint. I was ticked off at my bullheaded stupidity, and went off to lick my wounds for a while before giving the tables another go. After a fortifying meal (Mr. Ray Kroc was my chef that evening), I went down the beach to the Tropicana, and over the course of the remainder of the night made back all I lost and moreso. I departed Atlantic City in the wee hours of the morning, headed back to the DC area a very happy man.

I really didn't feel that tired leaving town that night; I'd made that late-night drive many times before. It's not the most exciting drive there is, especially the portion down the Atlantic City Expressway and down I-295. The ride that night was especially boring for some reason - pitch black, and few if any other cars on the road. About an hour into the trip, I began to zone out . . .

By "zone out", I don't mean that I was falling asleep at the wheel. I was - well, "zoning out". I determined later that I had reached a state where it was as if I had two brains working separately from one another. One side of my brain was in charge of the driving, making lane changes, using turn signals, etc. - doing everything normally. The other half of my head was . . . somewhere else. It was like the road was hypnotizing me; I guess I reached a state of what some truckers call "White Line Fever". And it all seemed hunky-dory to me, as I drove on and on . . .

When I finally snapped out of my daze (God knows how long later), I found myself zipping down a secondary road in the midst of one of those big industrial areas scattered throughout southern New Jersey, filled with giant chemical and petroleum-processing plants. There wasn't another car to be seen on the road ahead of or behind me, and although I couldn't see the factories on either side of the road through the black night, I could see the lights - weird yellow-orange ones, covering the buildings, smokestacks, loading docks, etc. Although the car windows weren't open, the stench of the area was filling the car - a miasma of chemicals, toxic waste, and decaying vegetation from the swamps surrounding this godforsaken place. I had absolutely no idea where I was or how I got there; I had somehow gotten off the main highway. The overall effect of all of this was extremely spooky and disorienting. To "wake up", as it were, from a trip you've made a thousand times before, and suddenly find yourself in what appeared to be The Last Place on Earth . . . well, to say I was freaked out was an understatement. I drove on for another mile of so in a sweat, clutching the wheel, searching frantically for a place to turn around. When I finally got to one of those dirt-packed median service roads, I made a veritable 'Dukes Of Hazzard'-style high-speed U-turn, and high-tailed it out of the area as fast as I dared go.

By the time I got back to I-295 South about twenty minutes later, I was completely shaken. I felt like I had returned to Earth from Pluto, seeing the taillights and headlights of cars ahead of and behind me once again. I had been driving in silence all the way from A.C., and as I figured that might have contributed to my earlier highway stupor, I switched the radio on. It took me a while to find something listenable, but I finally landed on a tune that caught my attention; I think it was on the Philadelphia independent station, WXPN, which can usually be counted on for interesting music.

This particular tune had a weird little syncopated tempo, dominated by electric guitar and what sounded like a xylophone-type instrument, offset by hand claps between the beats. I immediately pegged it as being either Caribbean or African pop, and yet there was an underlying familiarity in the music that made it readily accessible to my Americanized ears, even if I couldn't understand a word of what the singer was saying. The song was long, over five minutes long, yet it retained my interest, especially in the superb guitar work being done on it. In my enjoyment of and concentration on the song, I gradually relaxed, letting go of the tension from my recent Mystery Drive into Chemical Horrorland. As it ended, the announcer provided the music's details: it was "Moyo Wangu" by Thomas Mapfumo & The Blacks Unlimited.

I made a note to look into this band later that day, after getting home and resting up from my trip.

Thomas Mapfumo, born in 1945, was (is) a native (one of the Shona people) of what is now known as Zimbabwe, but what was then known as the self-governing British colony of Southern Rhodesia, and later as just Rhodesia. As such, he has had a lifelong front-row seat to the turmoil in that region, living through the area's evolution from colony to federation to independent state, and through white supremacist rule, civil war, and the quasi-dictatorship of its current ruler, Robert Mugabe. Initially apolitical, Mapfumo grow up in the rural part of the country and aspired to be simply a musician; he joined his first band in his home country at the age of sixteen. For years, he crisscrossed the country as a member of one of several bands, playing American rock and soul covers.

However, in the mid-70s, he began to take an interest in the indigenous Shona music of his people and country. Shona music is traditionally played on something called a mbira, which resembles a small, finger-plucked xylophone. Mapfumo began transcribing this mbira sound to the electric guitar and other modern rock instrumentation, retaining the Shona language in the lyrics, slowly creating a new style and type of music. He was doing this work at the height of native Rhodesians' resistance movement against the country's apartheid regime led by Ian Smith. Smith's government openly repressed and denigrated native culture; Mapfumo began to realize that his work with Shona music was not only an artistic statement, but a political one as well. Without quite meaning to, he quickly became a major voice in the resistance movement. He named his new music Chimurenga, a Shona word meaning "struggle", and his lyrics began to openly advocate the violent overthrow of the white-minority Smith government.

It took a while for the apartheid government to catch on to what Mapfumo was doing/singing (apparently, none of the white leaders understood Shona), but eventually they figured it out, banned his records from state-run radio, and threw him into jail without charges in 1979. But all of this was occurring just as the white supremacist regime was on its last legs. By the end of the year, Mapfumo was out of prison, Smith was gone, and a popularly-elected black-majority government led by Mugabe was installed in the newly-renamed country of Zimbabwe. The musician emerged an immensely popular hero, hailed as the "Lion of Zimbabwe" and the voice and moral conscience of the country.

However, as the 1980s wore on, Mapfumo became more and more disillusioned with the Mugabe regime and its abuse of power. In 1989, with his band the Blacks Unlimited, Mapfumo released Corruption, a searing and none-too-subtle critique of Zimbabwe's government, with incendiary song titles like "Muchadura [You Will Confess]" and "The Kupera Kwevanhu [Perishing to the People]" ("Moyo Wangu [My Heart]" was also included on this album). Needless to say, Mugabe and Co. were none too pleased at this criticism from a once-ally, and they began making life difficult for Mapfumo, making him the target of endless government harassment and phony accusations of wrongdoing. Finally, Mapfumo could take no more, and fled with his family into exile in the United States. Today, he lives in Oregon, and continues to make music and speak out again the abuses of Mugabe's government against Zimbabwe, the country he loves.

So, here it is, a superb example of African pop and music that helped unfreakify me on a late night drive long ago, Corruption by Thomas Mapfumo & The Blacks Unlimited, released in 1989 on Mango Records. Enjoy, and as always, let me know what you think.

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Belly - Slow Dust EP

When I worked for a large financial institution in Rhode Island back in the early 2000s, I became good friends with my boss's administrative assistant, Sue. Sue's husband, a former newspaperman, had recently died, and she was left on her own to raise a teenage son. Despite this adversity and these setbacks in her life, Sue was just about the nicest, sweetest person you could ever want to meet in a corporate setting. I sometimes felt bad for her, because her (that is, our) boss was somewhat of a dick, and kept her jumping with demands that were sometimes frivolous. I guess technically she was my admin too, but I made a point of rarely asking her to do anything for me - I was a big boy, and was old enough at that point to do my own copying and stapling.

By the middle part of the decade, both Sue and I had left the company, but we remained in touch over the years. She continued working here and there, and ended up putting her son through college and grad school (he's now a Boston attorney). She also remarried, this time to a droll, charming older gentleman who is her perfect match. Over the years, she settled into a new life of semi-leisure with her new husband, living the genteel Newport lifestyle and doting over her now-extended family, which included several grandchildren on her husband's side. She also retained the media and political connections she made when her first husband was alive, so she was fully plugged into what was happening in the state. I left the state for a time, all the while hearing from her every so often and getting the news regarding our old office mates and whatever else was happening up in Rhode Island.

A couple of months ago, Sue extended me an invitation to the Providence Newspaper Guild Follies, an annual affair where the state's media community roasts Rhode Island's state and national government officials and lampoons the political stories that made regional headlines over the past year. From what I understood, it was to be a pretty hoity-toity affair, with most if not all of the state's leading politicians in attendance, so generally it's pretty hard for the average Joe to get into. But Sue was able to use her late husband's connections to get an entire table in her name.

Now, stuff like this is generally not my bag. I figured it was going to be pretty snobby, and very "deep politics"-oriented, referring to people and events here that I knew little if anything about. But I hadn't seen Sue in a long time, and I assumed that she wouldn't steer me wrong and invite me to something that I would find miserable and stultifying. So I accepted her invitation. At the very least, I thought, they'd probably have some decent grub.

So on an icy, snowy Saturday night in late February, I drove to the venue, the Venus De Milo banquet facility in nearby Swansea, MA (I guess there was no place in Rhode Island large enough to handle an event like this). I arrived to find the place packed with what I assumed were Rhode Island's elite, most of whom were distinguished grey-haired hawk-eyed gents in tuxedos, escorting their bejeweled blue-haired wives. Not a lot of younger 'talent' in evidence, but I figured as much before I got there. There was a period of mingling/glad-handing before the actual banquet and show. So I got a drink at the bar, then made my way to the edge of the crowd to observe the human sideshow. I spotted the new governor, Lincoln Chafee, fairly quickly, and during the course of the night I saw, and spoke with, both of Rhode Island's U.S. senators, Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse. After a time, I tired of hobnobbing, and went in search of Sue's table.

I found her seated in the banquet hall with her husband and two other couples she had also invited to share her table. I settled into my place as Sue introduced me to her friends. She motioned to the older couple sitting next to me as a "Mr. & Mrs. Gorman, from Newport". I nodded politely and shook hands with them. Then Sue added this little bombshell, "Their sons used to be musicians. Have you ever heard of a band called Belly?"

I was jolted, and whirled toward the Gormans. "You're Chris and Tom's parents?", I all but shouted. They were obviously extremely pleased that I knew of their children and that band. Shoot, way back when, I was a BIG Belly fan.

Belly was formed in 1991 by Tanya Donelly and Fred Abong, both Newport natives and former members of the critically-acclaimed Throwing Muses. Donelly co-founded Throwing Muses as a fifteen-year-old high school student in 1981 with her half-sister Kristin Hersh. Ostensibly equals within the group, by the time the Muses released their fourth album, The Real Ramona, in 1991, Hersh's prolific songwriting output and overall aesthetic were almost completely eclipsing Donelly's role, relegating her to that of little more than sideman to Hersh's vision. This led to rising tensions within the band.

Actually, the tensions within Throwing Muses were evident way back in 1988, soon after the release of the band's second album House Tornado. In support of this album, the Muses went on a European tour with a band recently signed to 4AD opening for them - The Pixies. Over the course of that tour, Donelly and Pixies bassist Kim Deal began bonding, as they were both in similar circumstances within their respective bands - reduced to supporting a dominant frontperson's sound and vision. The two began discussing a side project to work on together during their bands' recording hiatus, the result of which was the formation of The Breeders and the subsequent release of Pod in 1990.

But with The Breeders, Donelly once again found herself in a familiar role - second banana to someone else. Donelly only contributed to one song on Pod; the rest had been penned by Deal during and just after the 1988 tour. Although critically acclaimed, Pod was not a strong seller. At the same time, both The Pixies and Throwing Muses were gearing up for their next albums (Trompe Le Monde and The Real Ramona, respectively), forcing the Breeders to go on hiatus. Dispirited with her experience working with/for Deal, Donelly halfheartedly rejoined her band for the recording session, a group which now featured Fred Abong on bass, a replacement for the recently departed founding member Leslie Langston. Once again, Donelly's contributions to the new Muses album were minimal; she received writing credits on only two ("Honeychain" and "Not Too Soon") of the twelve album cuts (however, "Two Step" is credited to "Throwing Muses", so I guess she gets partial credit there as well), all of which were buried on Side 2.

Apparently, these twin disappointments within a year in getting her music released were the last straw for Donelly. The Real Ramona was released in March 1991; she left both The Breeders and Throwing Muses that summer, taking Fred Abong from the latter band back to Newport with her. There, she reconnected with the Gorman brothers, childhood friends who had become musicians themselves, playing in a regional hardcore punk band called Verbal Assault. The four united as Belly, and quickly signed a recording/distribution deal with 4AD, her previous band's label.

Belly entered the studio in Warren, RI in the spring of 1992; their first release, the four-song Slow Dust EP, came out in late June of that year. Donelly wrote every word and note of the EP, and she had to feel some sort of vindication when the EP became a sensation and smashing success in the UK, where it reached Number One on the country's indie charts. It also received significant airplay here in the States; my local alternative station, WHFS, had it on heavy rotation during the summer of 1992. I bought that EP the moment it came out here, and played it to death on my car's CD player.

On the strength of the EP, 4AD rush-released Belly's first full-length album, Star, in January 1993, again with all songs written by Donelly (three of the songs off the EP were included on the album). 4AD's optimism was rewarded - Star was an unexpected hit in the U.S., garnering Gold record status with over 800,000 copies sold (2 million + worldwide), spawning three Modern Rock chart hits ("Feed The Tree", "Slow Dog", and "Gepetto") and later being nominated for two Grammy awards. The album also reached #2 on the UK album charts, thrashing anything the Muses ever put out over there (or The Breeders, for that matter). Donelly had to feel on top of the world at that point. Belly was so huge in 1993 that, for their tour that summer, their opening band was Radiohead.

Unfortunately, 1993 was Belly's peak. For some reason, Fred Abong quit the band shortly after the release of Star, altering the band's overall sound to something 'rockier' and more mainstream. Belly's sophomore effort, 1995's King, was not well-received due to this change in sound, selling only a fraction of what Star did. Donelly broke up the band soon afterwards.

Since then, Tanya Donelly has released several solo albums of middling success, and even reconciled with Kirstin Hersh, since 2000 appearing on stage and on record occasionally at Throwing Muses reunions. Fred Abong dabbled around with music for a while, then went back to school. He recently received an MA in Humanities from Salve Regina University in Newport. And in chatting with their parents, I learned that the Gorman brothers now have a photography studio in Brooklyn, and apparently are doing well with that. It was weird but cool talking to the Gormans at that event. Here I was, in the midst of some pretty "inside" political discussion and bantering, listening to them talk about heading over to Europe with their sons for part of their band's tour, hanging out backstage at their concerts (yes, she actually met Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood during the '93 tour, and said they were "nice boys"), and having Kristin Hersh over at their house for lunch. It's funny who you end up meeting, in the most unlikely venues, eh?

Anyway, here's Belly's first release, the Slow Dust EP, put out by 4AD in England and distributed in America by Sire Records. Enjoy, and as always, let me know what you think:

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Various Artists - Entertainment Weekly Presents Maximum Dance (Discs 1 & 2)

In the mid-90s, I was a loyal subscriber to Entertainment Weekly magazine. Now normally, I'm not a committed reader of media/music rags. I have been known to pick up the occasional British music magazine (Uncut, Mojo, etc.) from time to time, but it's not like I'm pacing in front of the bookstore every month, breathlessly awaiting the next issue. I've never had much use for periodicals like Rolling Stone, TV Guide, Creem, Hit Parader or mainstream mags of that ilk.

The only other entertainment magazine I ever made the effort to subscribe to was SPIN, back in the early days of its existence (i.e., the late 1980s). In its early days, SPIN's music coverage was consistantly great, a lot better than the middle-of-the-road music dreck that Rolling Stone was putting out. The magazine was so good, in fact, that Mark E. Smith went out of his way to give a positive name-check to SPIN in song (in "Oswald Defense Lawyer", on the 1988 Fall album The Frenz Experiment). When Mad Mark is singing your praises, you KNOW you're doing something right.

But unfortunately, grunge came along and destroyed SPIN magazine. Not that I have anything against grunge - it's just that, suddenly, SPIN became the house organ for the whole movement, and the magazine's coverage became all-grunge, all the time. I liked SPIN for its FULL coverage of the alternative music scene, not just that tiny sliver. After a couple of years of this sort of tedium (I mean, hell, how many times can you write about Mudhoney and Pearl Jam, seriously?), I finally threw in the towel and failed to renew my subscription.

Now, Entertainment Weekly wasn't a substitute for what SPIN used to offer. The magazine wasn't exactly on the cutting edge of what was happening in music and movies, and I didn't have any burning love for Entertainment Weekly's prose either. The only reason I kept getting this periodical year after year was that, as part of your renewal, the magazine would provide free music compilations as part of your paid subscription. Sometimes the compilations were rock; sometimes they were disco; other times they were country. But all of them were superb overviews of their particular genre.

This compilation, Entertainment Weekly Presents Maximum Dance, was mailed to 1995 subscribers. I personally feel that this was the finest of all the magazine's music sets, as it provides an excellent overview of the state of dance music in the late '80s/early '90s. Most of the major hits from that period are included on this two-disc set: Haddaway's "What Is Love"; "I've Been Thinking About You" by London Beat; "O.P.P." by Naughty By Nature; and many, many more.

I'm not embarrassed to say that, back in the day, I spent many an hour getting down to these hits in dance clubs from Narvik, Norway to Valparaiso, Chile and points in between. Yeah, a lot of these tunes seem cheesy now (especially the ones that have moved into the realm of parody, like the Haddaway song and Right Said Fred's "I'm Too Sexy"), but it helps to remember that, in their time, all of these songs were HUGE hits and dance-floor staples. Here's the lineup:

Disc 1:
1. What Is Love - Haddaway
2. A Deeper Love - Aretha Franklin
3. Don't Turn Around - Ace of Base
4. All Around The World - Lisa Stansfield
5. Ride On Time - Black Box
6. Flava In Ya Ear (Easy Mo Mix) - Craig Mack
7. I've Been Thinking About You (Eclipse Mix) - London Beat
8. Just Another Dream - Cathy Dennis
9. Whoomp! (There It Is) - Tag Team
10. Every Little Step - Bobby Brown
11. I'm Gonna Get You - Bizarre Inc.
12. O.P.P. - Naughty By Nature

Disc 2:
1. Mr. Vain - Culture Beat
2. Good Vibrations - Marky Mark & The Funky Bunch
3. I'm So Into You - SWV
4. Movin' On Up - M People
5. I'm Too Sexy - Right Said Fred
6. Summertime - DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince
7. Jump Around - House of Pain
8. Show Me Love - Robin S.
9. keep It Street - R. Kelly
10. Humpty Dance - Digital Underground
11. Big Poppa - The Notorious B.I.G.
12. Froggy Style - Nuttin' Nyce

If you're still a fan of this sort of music, this compilation is a one-stop source for all of the good stuff from back then. If you're not a fan, then hell, at the very least this set is good for a laugh, and hearing what people thought was cool at that time. Either way, here you go. As always, enjoy, and let me know what you think.

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Imperial Teen - What Is Not To Love

For my birthday in 2002, my girlfriend gave me two tickets to see The Breeders play at the Bowery Ballroom in New York City later that month. Rob, one of my New Zealand buddies, was over in the States that summer, working as a swim instructor at a summer camp for underprivileged urban children in Vermont (his normal gig is as an actor and print and TV model in NZ - here's his website if you're interested: http://www.robertfaith.com). So I invited him to come along (my girl wasn't a big Breeders fan). Rob was pretty psyched to learn about our upcoming trip; he'd been stuck up at that ramshackle camp for weeks, and was itching to get away and get back to New York, a place he had visited only one time previously but instantly fell in love with.

The only issue was that I had to schlepp my way up to Vermont to get him, as he had no transportation. I didn't see that as a major issue. On the week of the show, I was to be away in Atlanta until early Friday afternoon. The plan was that I would fly back to Providence, drive home to pack my stuff, then shoot up to Vermont to pick Rob up en route to NYC. The camp managers had only given him two days off, so it was going to be a quick trip. Up to that point in my life, I had never been to Vermont - really didn't have any reason to. But it looked small on the map, so how long could it take to get there?

[Well, I found out EXACTLY how long it took to drive through that stultifyingly boring state. I'll spare you the details of that journey - a tragicomedy of plane delays, traffic jams and assorted errors that began in Atlanta and didn't end for another 18 hours or so. Let me just say that, no offense to the good citizens of Vermont, but I'll live just as long and die just as happy never having to visit that boring-ass state ever again . . .]

By the time we finally got to New York in the very wee hours of that Saturday morning, we were dead beat. But we were also starving, so we threw our stuff down at the Helmsley and went to the Carnegie Deli (which is open until 4 am) for a feed (even at that late hour, there were famous faces there - Tommy Lasorda sat gorging himself at the table next to us) before stumbling back to the hotel and collapsing exhaustedly into our beds.

We were up fairly early the next morning - I was worn out from all of the traveling and delays, but Rob only had 48 hours of leave from the camp, and didn't want to waste it sleeping. The show didn't start until 8-ish, so we killed the day running around town, from Central Park to Canal Street and points in between. Rob hit the city wearing his "party/concert" attire, which consisted of bright orange jeans with cargo pockets and a black mesh shirt . . . I nearly collapsed with laughter. His outfit looked like something the Festrunk Brothers from SNL would wear in New York to look 'hip'.

[Of course, I ended up eating my words and guffaws - as we walked around Soho that afternoon, a guy with a camera came up to us, told Rob he was a professional photographer for a nationally-known men's fashion magazine, and asked to take his picture for an upcoming issue (the bastard completely ignored me - guess I wasn't dressed 'hip' enough). And sure enough, a couple of months later, a small shot of Rob sporting his 'look' appeared in the magazine. So that shows how much I know . . .]

After a few drinks (at the Cub Room on Sullivan St. - great place) and some chow (at Blue Ribbon Sushi just down the street - highly recommended), we hopped a taxi for the show, soon arriving in front of the venue. I was really looking forward to seeing the reformed Breeders, with both Kim and Kelley Deal back in the band (they were touring on Title TK, their first new album in nine years). In the years since the last show I saw with them together (in Christchurch, New Zealand in 1995 (detailed in my previous Kelley Deal 6000 post)), I'd seen Kelley's band play several times all over the country. And in 1997, I was part of a very disappointed packed house at DC's 9:30 Club listening to a set performed by what was touted as a "Breeders" band fronted by Kim, but stocked with lame, no-name musicians playing lame, no-name songs (I discovered later that most of those ersatz Breeders were actually members of Kim's more recent band The Amps). In both cases, some of the spark and chemistry was missing; it just wasn't the same as seeing the sisters perform together. So I was pretty jazzed (I was also secretly hoping that Kelley would remember me, her old friend from years past, and take the time to say hello - but I wasn't going to press the issue). Rob and I went up the stairs to the main stage area of the Bowery Ballroom, got a couple of drinks, and milled around waiting for the show to start.

I didn't know anything at all about the supporting band, Imperial Teen, so I was sort of surprised when, in speaking with some of the other concert attendees before the show, a fairly good number of them were there to support this band. Although they were the opener, they were touring on their own new album, 2002's On. Others there were enthusiastic, but I honestly didn't know what to expect as Imperial Teen took the stage.

Imperial Teen was formed in late 1994/early 1995 by Roddy Bottum, keyboardist for Faith No More. Soon after the 1992 release of Faith No More's Angel Dust, the band's most commercially successful album, Bottum began going through a series of personal crises (including the death of his father and coming out of the closet) that significantly limited his input and activity with that band. After getting through his rough period, he started a band, Star 69, as a side project with another San Francisco-area musician, former Sister Double Happiness member Lynn Perko (they later changed their name to Imperial Teen). They were joined by Perko's friend and former bandmate Jone Stebbins and local rocker Will Schwartz.

Imperial Teen released their debut album, Seasick, in 1996, followed by What Is Not To Love in 1998. From what I understand, these albums, featuring alternative/college radio hits like "You're One", "Yoo Hoo" and "Lipstick", were very well received in certain quarters. And due to relentless touring (including opening for Courtney Love's band Hole in 1998), they had established a pretty strong following. I don't know why I was so clueless, and hadn't heard of them . . . (oh yeah, now I remember - I lived in Texas).

Well, that night in the Bowery, I discovered what I had been missing all of those years. Imperial Teen was absolutely FANTASTIC. The songs were all outstanding, but what really struck me was the dispositions of the four band members; it's nice to go to a show and see a band actually having fun up on stage, and enjoying one another. And they were all completely unpretentious and 'precious' regarding their musical input - I was stunned when, after a couple of songs, the band members switched off on instruments - Perko left the drum kit and grabbed Bottum's guitar, Schwartz moved from guitar to bass, Stubbins took over guitar and lead vocals, and Bottum settled behind the drums. During the course of the show, every band member played every instrument. But it didn't come off as a sort of musical circuit training - it seemed totally natural, and of course for every variation the band sounded great.

Combined with a great set by The Breeders (who were in perfect form that night - it was as if that nine-year hiatus never happened), the entire show was superb. I arrived there a big fan of one band, but left there that evening a big fan of two.

We had to leave NYC on Sunday mid-afternoon, in order to get Rob back up to his camp on time. But I used some of our remaining time in the city to track down all of the Imperial Teen music I could, and we left the city with all three albums in our possession. Listening to those tunes in the car eased the hateful trip back up to Vermont (somewhat). Rob was bumming about having to go back to that mosquito-infested hellhole and resume his camp duties with those sullen city kids. But I was glad that I had the opportunity to show him a bit of fun that summer. And of course, getting new tunes out of it made it all worthwhile for me as well.

So, here's Imperial Teen's second album, What Is Not To Love, released by Slash Records in 1998. Enjoy, and as always, let me know what you think:

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The Clash - Return To Brixton EP [Extended Mixes]

It took me a long time to get into compact discs. I can remember when the Midshipmen's Store at Annapolis started stocking the things in 1985, a small area (basically, a little kiosk) within the store's already small music section. This was in the 'longbox' era, when CDs were packaged in 12" boxes so they would fit a music store's already in-place vinyl record racks. These long, thin things seemed strange and exotic back then, and there was a mystique about the technology behind those shiny little circles that mesmerized many people. However, the discs were also prohibitively expensive, as were CD players. And it's not like there was a huge selection of music, either new stuff or back catalogue items, available for sale in the early days (especially at the Mid Store, of all places . . . I'll be charitable, and just say that the CD albums they did have to offer at that time weren't exactly on the cutting edge). During my time at Annapolis I had managed to assemble an awesome collection of great tunes, the bulk of it (about 400-500 albums) on cassette tapes that I meticulously stored (alphabetically by artist and chronologically by release date - yes, I was (and am) that anal retentive . . .) in padded faux-leather cases. As much of a pain in the ass as it was to cart these bulky tape suitcases around with me hither and yon, I wasn't about to casually give up on my music treasures, compiled with much thought and at great expense over those years, and start over again.

So during the late '80s, while everyone else I knew forged ahead with their CD collections, I remained committed to cassettes, a musical Luddite clinging to a rapidly outdated format, the music industry equivalent of the buggy whip. In hindsight, I should have switched over sooner. But I guess in many ways, I was still intimidated by CD technology.

For example, I remember my first visit to England, in 1988. My ship docked in Portsmouth, and that first weekend there I caught British Rail and headed for London, Ground Zero for me as far as what was happening in the world musically. I arrived there coincidently on the same day as the historic Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday concert at Wembley Stadium. But I wasn't interested in any of that activity, I wanted to see things that resonated with me (like Kings Road, as seedy and awesome as I thought it would be, and Brixton, which was sort of scary and grim until I fell in with some locals). At one point during that trip, I HAD to go to the world-famous Virgin Records store near Piccadilly Circus. I bought tons of tapes while there, but the main thing I remember about the place was the "CD factory". There was a sublevel in the Virgin building that could be viewed through glass from the upper levels. On the sublevel floor was a compact disc production line, manned by workers wearing white hooded anti-static suits, smoked glasses and face masks. It was all very sterile, protected and futuristic, and it made quite an impression on me - the WRONG impression. I thought, "Shoot, CDs are so hard to make, no wonder they're so expensive!" If a tape broke on you, you could either go out and buy a replacement fairly cheaply, or else borrow a friend's cassette and make a new copy - with CDs so pricey and apparently fragile, what would happen if one of those discs broke? So I remained on the CD sidelines.

Finally, by the early 90's, the pressure to switch over to CDs was becoming unbearable. The final push over the line happened due to good old WHFS, the old alternative music station for Annapolis, Baltimore and Washington. I had just left the Norfolk area after three years and returned to the DC area to take a job in Arlington, and I was happy to be back in my old haunts and once again surrounded by 'good' music (the Tidewater area being a virtual backwater for that type of stuff, as I've mentioned in earlier posts). One of the first things that met my ears upon my return that spring was a very cool remix of The Clash's "The Guns Of Brixton", a song in semi-heavy rotation on 'HFS.

Now, not only is The Clash one of my all-time favorite bands, but "The Guns Of Brixton" (off of London Calling) is quite possibly my all-time favorite Clash song. So I went running to the old Tower Records at George Washington University to grab this remix . . . only to find that the EP wasn't available on tape, ONLY on CD.

I stood there in the record store with head bowed, pondering, holding that CD longbox in my hand for what seemed like several minutes. Finally I sighed, shrugged my shoulders, and walked to the counter to purchase it. They finally got me.

The next day, I bought a Sony portable CD player that came with a little doohickey that attached to the player and ran into the car's cassette tape slot, so I could listen to the CD while I drove (with skips and all - the anti-skip technology back then wasn't as advanced as it was now, necessitating careful driving and/or ingenious padding to enable you to hear an entire song without interruption). And the rest, as they say, is history . . .

So here's the one that started it all for me - the very first CD I ever bought, the Clash's Return To Brixton [Extended Mixes] EP, released by Epic Records back in 1990. Even after all of these years, I still enjoy these remixes, and I hope you all enjoy them too. Here you are - let me know what you think:

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(And sorry I've been away for so long - circumstances, you know . . .)

Poll Results - "On the Elevator To Hell, what sort of music is playing?"

Reggaeton, guys? Really?

I thought sure that either Gangsta Rap or Country (my personal choice) would win in a landslide . . . man, I didn't realize how deep the enmity is out there for reggaeton - wow!

Here are the results:

Rap - 1 vote
Bluegreas - 1 vote
Disco - 1 vote
Klezmer - 1 vote
Other (and don't ask me what that 'other' is) - 1 vote
Celtic - 2 votes
Jazz Flute (a la Ron Burgundy) - 2 votes
Country - 3 votes
Gangsta Rap - 3 votes
Reggaeton - 5 votes

Thanks to all who participated! I'll put up a new poll soon, just as soon as I can think of a new topic.

Sorry, gang . . .

Just got busy here with a lot of after-New Year's sort of stuff, and thus haven't had the time/wherewithal to post anything in a while. But I will be back soon - thanks for hanging in there with me!

Merry Christmas!

Just want to take the time here to say thanks a lot to all of you who've stopped by here to visit over the past few months. I hope you've enjoyed my posts and the screeds that come along with them. Music is a personal thing, I think, and it's my feeling that the impression or memory a song imparts to you is just as important as the song itself, if not moreso.

So I hope that the holiday music you've been listening to this week has put you all in a happy, festive mood. Merry Christmas, and I hope to be seeing more of you here in 2011!

Well . . .

You people never cease to surprise me! Lolita Storm's Girls Fucking Shit Up, the worst-reviewed album ever on this site, has had the highest download rate of anything I've ever put up here, with acquisitions quickly eclipsing those of albums that have been posted here for months! I'm completely amazed, and somewhat amused - I'm thinking maybe I should write crappy reviews for everything here!

Just out of curiosity, can someone explain to me what exactly IS the attraction of this album, and why so many people want it? It can't be my writeup - I savaged it (unless, of course, the concept of reverse psychology is actually valid here . . . )! Please let me know in the "Comments" section below - thanks!

Various Artists - By Golly Get Jolly!

Here's another Starbucks Christmas compilation for you, By Golly Get Jolly, available during the 2002 holiday season at stores nationwide and picked up by yours truly at their Providence, Rhode Island Wayland Square location that year.

This one is full of a lot of great pop and easy-listening renditions of popular Christmas songs. Standouts include Dean Martin's "Let It Snow", Nat King Cole's smooth and flawless rendition of "Silent Night", and the classic version of "Do You Hear What I Hear?" by the immortal Bing Crosby.

Here's the complete lineup:

1. Diana Krall - Jingle Bells (3:25)
2. Lou Rawls - The Little Drummer Boy (2:50)
3. Ella Fitzgerald - Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas (feat. The Frank de Vol Orchestra) (2:56)
4. Johnny Mathis - Sleigh Ride (2:59)
5. Nancy Wilson - That's What I Want For Christmas (1992 Digital Remaster) (2:19)
6. Dean Martin - Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow! (1:54)
7. Peggy Lee - The Christmas Song (Merry Christmas to You) (2:30)
8. Frank Sinatra - The Christmas Waltz (feat. The Ralph Brewster Singers) (3:03)
9. Chet Baker - Winter Wonderland (4:24)
10. Nina Simone - Little Girl Blue (Live Stereo (1964/New York)) (2:32)
11. Lena Horne - Jingle All The Way (2:36)
12. Bing Crosby - Do You Hear What I Hear? (2:45)
13. Nat King Cole - Silent Night (1:28)

I've always thought that this was the sort of Christmas compilation you'd play as background music at holiday parties at your home, or at similar gatherings. It's light, jazzy and sets just the right tone for the festivities. So I hope I'm providing this to you before your big party this year! If not, take it and save it for next year, or just listen to it yourself - I know you'll like it!

Enjoy:

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Lolita Storm - Girls Fucking Shit Up

. . . or as I like to refer to it: "The Worst Fucking Album I Ever Bought".

And that's saying something. Over the years, I've laid my hard-earned cash out on some truly reprehensible garbage - Julian Lennon's Valotte, Sheryl Crow's Tuesday Night Music Club, Andy Summers' XYZ and It's A Sunshine Day: The Best Of The Brady Bunch, just to name a few. But at the very least, these albums I just named have a dollop of something within to redeem themselves - one decent song, the nostalgia factor, whatever. Girls Fucking Shit Up has ABSOLUTELY no redeeming qualities whatsoever that I can find.

As per usual, I blame the British music press. Those lyrical limey lunkheads fooled me once again.

Back in the late 90's/early 00's, English magazines like NME and Melody Maker (which merged with NME in 2000) were on a roll. Practically everything cool or cutting edge that I listened to back then, the Brits had discovered first, and championed long before anyone in the U.S. got wind of them. The Smiths, The Madchester sound, The Pixies and the stuff 4AD was doing - they were the ones who let the world know about these new and important sounds. And with that, I became a devoted reader, my thought being that if Q or the NME said it was good, then who was I to argue?

Lolita Storm was formed in 1999 by four working-class girls, who performed under the nom de plumes of Nhung Napalm, Romy Bonilla Medina, Jimmy Too Bad and Spex. They put together a demo tape of their material, which made its way to influential UK DJ Steve Lamacq. From that initial contact, they were quickly signed to a small independent label, Rabid Badger, and released a single ("Goodbye America"/"Get Back I'm Evil") later that year. NME immediately latched on to this band, making their first 45 release their "Single Of The Week", and championing the band as "Modern Age Riot Grrls" and "the logical descendents of Bikini Kill".

Sounds good, right? Well, not so fast, pardner. Lolita Storm's sound was nothing close to what Kathleen Hanna and company were doing out in the Pacific Northwest. The band's sound has been described as something called "digital hardcore", but that's bullshit - to paraphrase Wikipedia, their music is basically "chanted [shouted] punk lyrics about sex, bondage, drugs and feminism . . . put to a backdrop of generally highly aggressive [digital breakbeats]" at a maximum BPM. It's essentially noisy, toneless, mindless shit.

Still don't believe me?  Here - have a taste:

NOW are you convinced?

Still, however, I didn't know that's what this band was all about. So, in 2000, when Lolita Storm released their first LP, Girls Fucking Shit Up on Alec Empire's Digital Hardcore Recordings (DHR), the April 21st, 2000 issue of NME gave it a decent review, giving them points for effort rather than execution. My dumb ass read this review, and like the Pavlovian music dog I was at the time, I immediately responded to this outside stimulus by running out and buying this album at my first opportunity.

Big mistake on my part.

From that point on, I began to question the objectivity and wisdom inherent in NME/Q/Uncut's music reviews, and to take their recommendations with many grains of salt. In the meantime, I listened to this album once or twice, just to make sure I didn't miss out on any redeeming qualities that might have been buried within. Then I stuck this CD up on the shelf, in a section I call the Island of Misfit Tunes, where it has remained unplayed for the past decade.

So again, in case you missed it - here's the Pee-Pee Soaked Heckhole review of Lolita Storm's first album:

Xxxxx Fucking Shit Xx

I'd like to thank the band for seeing fit to include the gist of their music in the album's name.

But hey - that's just my review. Like I said above - don't take my word for it. If you feel up to it, here it is - have a listen. Just don't say I didn't warn you:

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The Wiggles - "Unto Us, This Holy Night"

OK, OK . . . I can almost see the looks of incredulity on your faces with this entry. But bear with me, while I explain its inclusion here (and no, I am not insane).

Frankly, it's hard to write a good modern-day Christmas song. I think that most people have a pretty set list of images and ideas in their heads as to what Christmas is and should be all about. These things include stuff like sleigh rides and snowflakes: Santa Claus and reindeer: Jesus, Mary and Joseph; presents and bells and Christmas tree lights; heading home to see the folks in their nice, warm house and having holiday dinner with the family; etc. You know what I mean. The problem that holiday songwriters have nowadays is that, musically, all of these themes have been covered and recovered, ad nauseum. There are literally dozens of songs about sleigh rides, scores of songs referring to Santa, hundreds of songs addressing the subject of Christmas snow or holiday weather, and thousands of song celebrating Bethlehem and the birth of Jesus. It's all been done.

In addition to theme, a holiday song has to set the right tone - sincere without being sappy, real enough without seeming contrived. Think of the best lines in the greatest Christmas songs - "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire; Jack Frost nipping at your nose"; "For the holidays you can't beat home sweet home!"; "Oh the weather outside is frightful; but the fire is so delightful"; "I'm dreaming of a white Christmas; just like the ones I used to know". All of those songs conjure up and reinforce cherished Christmas images and ideals, even for people who have never roasted chestnuts in their lives or have never experienced a white Christmas. [For example, it was always sort of weird hearing these traditional holiday tunes played and sung when I lived in New Zealand, where Christmas falls in the middle of the austral summer there. And yet, the people there cherished this music as much as folks in the Northern Hemisphere did, so while it seemed odd, it still felt right and natural.}

Unfortunately, all of this hasn't stopped contemporary songwriters from trying over and over again to create up a new bit of holiday musical magic. Most of the latest results have been embarrassingly trite or maudlin - prime examples include Paul McCartney's "Wonderful Christmastime" from 1979, Leann Rimes' "Put A Little Holiday In Your Heart" from 1996, 2000's "My Only Wish (This Year)" by Britney Spears, and Faith Hill's 2008 song "A Baby Changes Everything". Even worse have been the spate of Christmas novelty songs released in the past generation - the worst of which being the reprehensible "Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer"; I could live just as long and die just as happy never hearing a note of that stupid song ever again.

With all of this in mind, you could quite easily make the argument that there hasn't been a great, sincere, classic (not novelty) Christmas song written since the mid-1960s. I'm referring to beloved tunes like Vince Guaraldi's "Christmas Time Is Here" from the 1965 Charlie Brown Christmas special, Andy Williams' 1963 classic "It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year", and "Do You Hear What I Hear?" by the Harry Simeone Chorale in 1962 (I'd include Burl Ives' "Holly Jolly Christmas" and Thurl Ravenscroft's "You're A Mean One, Mr. Grinch" in this group, but I consider these more as novelty holiday songs).

Now, I'm not a big Wiggles fan. They were huge around my household back in the early part of this decade, when my children were still toddlers. Their TV show was rarely missed in my house, and more than once I stood in line overnight to buy tickets to the Australian group's local live shows. But the popularity of The Wiggles waned as my youngsters approached school age, relegating the piles of Wiggles DVDs, toys and other paraphenalia to boxes in the storage area.

I bought the album Wiggly Wiggly Christmas for my one- and two-year-old daughters in 2002, although it was released in 2000. The majority of the material on the disc is kiddie fodder - reworkings of traditional Christmas tunes alongside bouncy, silly original music usually referring to a character on the band's TV show: "Henry's Christmas Dance" or "Wags Is Bouncing Around The Christmas Tree", for example.

But there was one song on this album which stood out from the rest: "Unto Us, This Holy Night". On this one, the band played it straight, and offered up a superb Latin-tinged melody about the birth of Jesus, subtlely highlighted with tasteful horn arrangements. The song is so glaringly good, that it's hard to believe that it's stuck unheralded in the middle of an album like this.

Here's a clip of the Wiggles from their Wiggly Wiggly Christmas video, playing this song; it starts at about 1:32 after the chatting with the children:

It's almost shocking to admit this, but I have to say, in my opinion, that The Wiggles' "Unto Us, This Holy Night" is simply one of the best Christmas songs written in the past twenty-five years. But I'll let you all decide for yourself. I have mercifully taken this one song off the album (and believe me, if you knew how bad stuff like "Let's Clap Hands For Santa Claus" or "Go Santa Go" really was, you'd be thanking me for not posting the rest of the disc) and attached it below. Check it out, and let me know what you think of it, or of any of what I've written above.

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The Fantastic Dee-Jays - The Fantastic Dee-Jays

I don't think I ever mentioned this before, but from 2001 to 2007, I was in a band, a decent band at that. The group was made up of high-level executives, my colleagues, at the financial institution where I worked in Rhode Island - the drummer was the Chief Financial Officer, the bass player was Lead Syndicator, etc. The group was already going semi-strong before I joined the company, just doing instrumental jam sessions in someone's basement. One day they told me that they were looking for a singer, and asked if I was interested in the job. Now frankly, at the time, I couldn't carry a tune if it had a handle on it. But I went and auditioned for them one night, and I guess I was passable enough; they let me join up.

Our band did nothing but rock, garage rock and blues covers, stuff like "Devil With The Blue Dress", "Stormy Monday", "Burning Love" - nothing original. But we practiced a lot, and got competent enough to begin playing small local gigs, company parties and Open Mike Nights around Providence, stuff like that. We didn't take our group too seriously - it was just something to do, a way to blow off steam after work. However, as it turned out, we went a lot further with that band than we ever dreamed, and achieved some small measure of national success (on the amateur level, of course). But that's another story that I may tell later on down the line. All in all, it was really fun, and a dream come true for me. One day, maybe I'll post a recording of one of our songs too, for you all to have a laugh over.

We were a pretty close bunch, the group of us, often eating lunch together or going our for after-work drinks on the days we didn't practice. In addition to our regular jobs around the office, we were collectively known there as "the band", which got us a lot of attention in the building, both positive (in that people from work would flock to our gigs, a major selling point we used when negotiating fees with club owners) and not-so-positive (a few folks resented our insular, tight-knit combo, thinking that somehow our membership in an unofficial company band somehow gave us a Teflon coating). Fortunately, there wasn't much of that latter attitude around.

One day, an acquaintance of mine there in the office who often came to our shows handed me a CD of tunes he thought the band might like enough to take a swing at (in addition to being the lead singer, it was the bass player and I who came up with the majority of the group's material). The CD contained songs by an old '60s group called The Fantastic Dee-Jays. I'd never heard of them before, but the guy who gave me the recordings had an affiliation with the band - way back when, his dad was their rhythm guitarist.

The Fantastic Dee-Jays were a Pittsburgh-area (actually, out of McKeesport) group founded in 1964 by three 16-year-old high school students: Denny Nicholson on lead guitar, Dick Newton on rhythm guitar and Tom Juneko on drums (note that the band used an unusual bass-less setup). They were a straight-up, literal garage band, practicing at Newton's house after school; just a bunch of kids goofing and having fun.

However, in early 1965, a local radio DJ caught wind of the band's sound and began recording them after-hours on the station's equipment, then playing the songs on the station the following day. These singles began building the band a rabid local following, with kids flocking to their shows. And it generated enough of a buzz to lead to the recording of their one and only album, The Fantastic Dee-Jays, in early 1966, released on Stone Records. Later that year, on June 25th, the band played its biggest gig, opening for the Rolling Stones at the Pittsburgh Civic Center Arena during the Stones' second American tour (in support of the album Aftermath).

But, as things usually happen, the band began to unravel as the members got older and graduated from high school. By the end of 1966, The Fantastic Dee-Jays were history. Members of the original band stayed active, eventually evolving into another local garage band, The Swamp Rats.

It's an old story, told many times before - group gets together, has some level of success, breaks up and moves on - end of story. Sounds like That Thing You Do!, eh? Well, The Fantastic Dee-Jays should have fallen to that level of extreme 60s obscurity. However, the five singles and lone album they cut have long been celebrated by serious collectors of mid-Sixties garage rock, so much so that in 1996, Millennia Records obtained the license for their sole album and rereleased it on their label. In addition to their excellent original songs, the album includes a couple of notable/noteworthy tunes:

- A cover of "Fight Fire" by The Golliwogs, a band that would eventually evolve into Creedence Clearwater Revival;
- "What You're Doing", a Lennon/McCartney obscurity, and
- "T & C Lancers", a song the band recorded for a advertisement for a local shoe store!

We (that is, my band) never used any of the songs on this album, but I came to appreciate and enjoy the energy and simplicity inherent in these tunes. Shoot - I was in a garage band myself, so I could relate.

And I hope you all can relate too - here it is:

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Enjoy, and as always, let me know what you think.

The Fall - (We Wish You A) Protein Christmas EP (plus a bonus Fall Christmas song)

I'm jazzed about this posting - it lets me combine my whole Christmas schtick with the rabid fandom I have for my favorite band, The Fall.

Here's The Fall's EP (We Wish You A) Protein Christmas, released by Action Records in 2003. Only one song on this CD, the title cut, has anything to do with Christmas. The other three songs are taken from the Country On The Click sessions from earlier that year ("Mad Mock Goth" would later appear on 2004's stopgap LP Interim). Here's the lineup:

1.  (We Wish You A) Protein Christmas 3:32
2.  (We Are) Mod Mock Goth 4:44
3.  (Birtwistle's) Girl In Shop 3:54
4.  Recovery Kit 2 # 4:04

Here you are:

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And as a special addition to this posting, I'm including The Fall's song "Christmastide", included on the bonus disc added to select editions of 1997's Levitate. I personally consider this one to be the best Fall holiday song - not that they have that many to begin with (although "Protein Christmas" isn't bad either). Enjoy.

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