Orphan No More

After watching the Green Day/U2 concert that was part of the overblown ESPN coverage of the New Orleans' Saints' first game back home in the Superdome, I stuck Green Day's Warning in my CD player for the first time in a long time.

This CD, for me, is an orphan. If you're a hardcore music fan, you know what I'm talking about. Perfectly good albums - even great ones - that you listened to three, maybe four times, liked a lot, and promptly forgot about because there were five more that were not so patiently waiting their turn.

Orphan CDs. They're just sitting there taking up space, but don't even try and talk yourself into getting rid of them, because you know it's not gonna happen.

Instead, let's rejuvenate the orphan CDs, and make them full members of our music collections. I'm starting with Warning.

I like Green Day, but I'm not an extreme fan. I only own this one album, and it had accumulated quite the layer of dust on it. For that, I apologize, because it's just wrong. This is a great album, filled with catchy riffs, numerous chances for a good head banging, and some great, smart lyrics to shout along with. This song in particular has it all.

Minority

Naughty With The Bisque

Not to date myself, but back in college I recall being on a campus bus on the way home from the library, and some schmuck was on a cell phone the size of my leg, having a conversation like this. "Hey man...what's up?"..."Nothin' man...hanging out on the bus!" And I recall swearing then and there never to have a cell phone, because, well, how useless.

Now, of course, I don't have a land line because I rely only on my cell phone. Instead, I've found a new subject to disdain: the blackberry. Who needs to be at work 24 hours a day?

I'm sure I'll be addicted within a month.

Anyhow, what a week. I could use more power lunches like this and less actual ones.

Har Mar Superstar - Power Lunch

It's My Life

This weekend I saw Jesus Camp.

Jesus Camp is a documentary about born-again Christians who take their kids to camp and teach them that ghost stories and Harry Potter are bad, that George Bush is doing the work of God on this earth, and that global warming is an invention of the liberals. It is about how America is increasingly mixing church and state. And it is about the deliberate teaching of intolerance. It is scary.

Afterwards, I went and got Egyptian food in Queens, and I got a drink, and I enjoyed me some life. I'm sure I'll burn eternally in hell.

This is by a guy who operates under the name Muslimgauze. It's hard to tell, from what's out there on the Internet, whether the guy who created this music is a Koran-thumping fundamentalist, or whether he's a peaceful guy from Manchester who likes Mideastern beats. That's really not the point - the point is, he has the right to believe whatever he believes, and make songs titled "Kabul is free under a veil," in peace. And I have the right to listen to it, whether or not I agree with him. And the world will be a better place if it understands that we're both OK people.

Shimmer, Then Disappear

How Come You Treat Me The Way You Do?

To properly listen to this song:

1) Move to the south side of Chicago as a student.

2) Live in a gigantic hovel of an apartment with six other people. Never do the dishes. Spend much time eating food that is bad for you and drinking Schlitz.

3) Discover the blues. Go to blues clubs in bad neighborhoods and listen to the blues. Congratulate yourself on still being alive afterwards. Then congratulate yourself on how cool you are.

4) Throw a party and invite some of the cool bluesmen you know so that other students can see how cool you are.

5) Wake up the next morning incredibly hung over. Wander out into living room where roommates are trying to finish the left-over keg of beer so it can be returned.

6) Put this song on the stereo. Listen. Realize that it's not you who's cool. It's the music.

Hound Dog Taylor - Sadie

Travesty Against Mankind

I see that T.A.T.U. has a best of album coming out. Pardon me, but didn't they have only one (and I'll be charitable here) "hit"? Maybe I'm just getting old and out of touch.

Anyhow, talk about a stupid creationist myth surrounding these guys. At least with the White Stripes, you might actually have wondered, briefly, whether they were husband and wife, or brother and sister, or neither.

As a cleansing ritual, I have to post some Russian music sans silly gimmick or gyrating hips. This song is about vodka, and like vodka itself, it hits hard, goes down with a little cough and some watering of the eyes, and could be better digested with some black bread and a pickle.

By a group called DDT, this is about two old friends running into each other and sitting down for a drink. It's beyond my ability to translate, but best I can figure, here's the chorus:

White river
Drops of life
Ah, river/hand
Give me wings
I'm drowning and in all this nonsense
You're a shotglass on the table
You're the sky in my hands

DDT - Belaya Reka

Flashback Friday

Nine Inch Nails may have been the music that introduced me to the alternative world.

Where I'm from, mainstream music is country. The few radio stations that played pop in the 1980s down south - well, it was a steady diet of such fine artists as Kylie Minogue, Bonnie Tyler, and Def Leppard. I think that last may be one of the first tapes I bought, and I still harbor a secret affection for "Pour Some Sugar On Me."

I was a band geek. I remember very few details of this one particular band trip - for instance, I have no idea why we went to North Little Rock, or how we wound up at the mall, or how my friends and I met this kid named Mac, a band geek from another school, or where he was from. But I do remember that he was really cute, and that he had this blue Corvette, and that we all got in it to drive from one side of the mall to the other, and that Pretty Hate Machine was in the tape deck. It may have been the first time I unabashedly asked somebody, "What is this?" and then went straight out and bought it.

I don't know what happened to the tape I bought. It's probably still in my bedroom at home. But I recently found a used copy of the CD and bought it. Listening to it, I was reminded of a line from a newspaper review of one of my favorite diners, which reads something like, "Like nostalgia itself, the egg cream is more fondly remembered than experienced anew." Just substitute the words "Nine Inch Nails" for "egg cream" and you've got it.

Nevertheless, this song still rules if you're just fricking angry.

Head Like A Hole

Soda On The Side

This is awesome.

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Chicken Noodle Soup

The Pantheon

"The pantheon" is the phrase an ex uses to describe his favorite bands. Ask him how he feels about the Rolling Stones, and he'll say, "They're in the pantheon."

If you go strictly by number of CDs owned, here's who's in my pantheon/favorite song:

4) Cowboy Junkies (9 cds)/Blue Guitar
3) Kronos Quarter (10 cds - tie): it was a tiny bit of a surprise that I have so many of these guys' CDs. I almost never listen to them. Nor do I have a single favorite piece.
3) Ani DiFranco (10 cds - tie)/Amazing Grace
1) Radiohead (11 formal purchases + numerous bootlegs)/The Gloaming

Near pantheon:

Calexico (6)/Tulsa Telephone Book (a cover)
The Frames (6)/God Bless Mom live version
Andrew Bird (5)/I
Wilco (5)/I Am Trying To Break Your Heart
Dandy Warhols (4)/We Used To Be Friends
Magnetic Fields/The Sixths (4)/The Dead Only Quickly Decay
Jurassic 5 (4)/Jurass Finish First
Modest Mouse (4)/Paper Thin Walls
PJ Harvey (3)/Rid Of Me live version
Spoon (3)/Anything You Want
M Ward (3)/Involuntary

(To be fair, I should also list other 3-or-more CD bands whom I snobbishly don't think are going to move up the list: Beta Band, No Doubt, Beastie Boys, Holly Golightly, Peter Gabriel, Hem, Prince, Police/Sting, Simon & Garfunkel/Paul Simon.)

Who's in your pantheon?

Coltrane In A Dub Shack?

I stumbled on Ubiquity Records' Web site a while back when I was searching for The Pharaohs, about whom I posted earlier. At the time they didn't have the Pharaohs' CD I was looking for, but I still ended up ordering some $75 worth of stuff from them, cuz they back a lot of other funky artists too (and, my real downfall: they print some really neat t-shirts).

I just got an email from them about something called Radio Citizen, which at first listen sounds pretty cool. They describe it thus: Strains of film noir-worthy dark jazz, chunky tropical dub, and snake-charming soul permeate Berlin Serengeti. CD to be out Sept. 12.

Check them out here to listen to some songs, or download some 45 second clips at Ubiquity's Web site.

O Canada

I have just returned from western Canada, where I fell wildly in love with Banff. I am now filled with the urge to hike, climb mountains, raft down rivers and fight bears. Go to Banff before it disappears in a wild orgy of suburbia or before U.S. citizens are banned from Canada because of the stupid things our president says.

Having seen this part of Canada, it's easy to understand why there are so many good Canadian bands. With inspiration like this to work with, creating big gorgeous songs must be easy.

I think Nathan Lawr might be my favorite Canadian artist, with the possible exception of the Cowboy Junkies. Sort of in the M. Ward vein, I guess, but less growl-y. It is endlessly frustrating to me that his music isn't available in the States.

What You Lie To Me

Then there's Fiftymen, a blues-influenced band straddling the country/rock border that I just now discovered on the useful if somewhat frustrating maplemusic.com Web site.

After Darkfall