The Essex Green - This Isn't Farmlife
The Essex Green - Cardinal Points

Prior to actually sitting down to pound out a blog from this worn keyboard, I generally obsess mentally over what I'm going to say, how I'm going to approach a piece of music or a band. Rarely I discover that I really needed to write about something else entirely. Sometimes the finished piece is better than what I imagined. Often over the course of research I find that some of my points are completely unoriginal.

I was going to talk all about how Essex Green manages to walk that fine line between nostaglia and admiration, how they manage to exist in timeless space—creating songs as indebted to the pop of the past as entrenched in contemporary mires, and how Brooklyn hipsters and scuzzy garage-rockers could both find common ground on the Essex Green, but the Merge Records blurb sums it all up much more efficiently: "timeless pop that is classic without being retro."

Another interesting point is that Cannibal Sea, The Essex Green's latest album was actually recorded in both Brooklyn and Ohio. So maybe there is something to my somewhat pejorative reduction of geographies and genres. Moving beyond bi-coastal, Essex Green manages to be both Red and Blue, and neither.

In full disclosure, Cannibal Sea is the first Essex Green record I ever bought. But that infernal Radio Io Edge... Everytime "This Isn't Farmlife" came on I thought to myself, what a great song, stopped working, and clicked on iTunes to see who it was. And "Cardinal Points" seemed to capture a lot of what I love about Caribou and my Nuggets box set. And hopefully someone is burning me some of their earlier stuff too... So there may be more Essex Green in Cacophony's future.

The Essex Green is making their way out to LA on Sunday, May 7 at Spaceland. And have about 10 shows after that as they make there way back to New York on May 18.

(Buy Cannibal Sea from Merge.)

Ramsey Lewis - Hang On Sloopy

The great thing about listening to music that basically no one else your age cares about is that you can be into some fairly dorky shit and there’s no one around to make fun of you. I can proudly tell people I like Ramsey Lewis and most people (not you guys, but you know, normal people) won’t even know who I’m talking about. Actually, I’d like to meet some people who could ridicule me for loving this song, but I’m not sure where jazz purists hang out. I think they just sit in their basements dusting off vinyl and taking occasional breaks to be talking heads on PBS specials. I’m pretty sure they don’t read mp3 blogs.

Ramsey Lewis may be regarded by many to be the antithesis of jazz purism, his reinvention of contemporary pop hits were usually attached with discrediting prefixes - soul-jazz, blues-jazz, pop-jazz. But the meanings of those distinctions have pretty much faded over time; to my untrained ear his music just sounds good. His piano playing is simple and elegant and I’m sure that before he had a massive hit in 1965 with his cover of “The ‘In” Crowd” he was a fine hard bop player. He’s no Thelonious Monk or anything, but not every jazz musician can be a tortured genius. Sometimes you’re just an average player who has to make up for it with enthusiasm.

And Lewis has got enthusiasm to spare. After the success of “The ‘In’ Crowd” he spent the rest of his career essentially repeating the same ideas: take a pop song, give it a swinging beat, play out the melody on piano with occasional flights of improvisation, let the audience sing the words if they want. His version of "Hang On Sloopy”, recorded in 1973 at the legendary Lighthouse Club in Hermosa Beach, doesn’t stray far from this formula, but it’s so much fun it’s hard to care. I hesitate to use the word infectious, because it’s a cliché and it’s a cliché I think I just used last week, but short of inappropriate thesaurus-provided synonyms (transferable? Communicable?) I can’t think of a better way to describe the charm of Lewis’ work.

You know how in Groundhog Day, Bill Murray learns how to play the piano and then impresses everybody by playing Mozart or something? Ramsey Lewis’ “Hang On Sloopy” is the song I would play if I could play piano. Whenever I listen to it, that’s the fantasy I envision. I’m at some stuffy cocktail party where everybody’s bored out of their mind and I saddle up to the piano and start picking out the melody. Pretty soon people start moving a little bit, then the drums and bass kick in (I’m not sure how that happens. Movie magic I guess.) and people really start dancing. The fervor keeps building until I get to the chorus and then the crowd just goes ape shit: they’re up on the tables, standing on top of the piano, smashing champagne bottles, old ladies are gettin down, and they all spontaneously scream along “haaaaaang on Sloopy, Sloopy hang on.” After it’s all over, I take a bow and everybody cheers. And then Andie McDowell falls in love with me.

Hopefully she’s not a jazz purist.


(Click here to buy Ramsey Lewis' Finest Hour on Amazon.)

(For more information on "Hang On Sloopy", the official rock song of Ohio, click here.)

And in unrelated news, if you haven't gone over to Stereogum yet to get the new Sufjan Stevens track, do it now.

The Housemartins - Sheep
The Housemartins - Hopelessly Devoted to Them

If the jangley pop topped with layers of harmony isn't enough to get you interested in The Housemartins, maybe these keywords from their Wikipedia page will:

Marxist politics; born-again Christianity; attacking his business partner with an axe; the future Fatboy Slim

The Housemartins spanned from 1983 to 1986, going through a few members in the process. (And yet, I'm just now discovering them.) The band's image changed throughout the years from an exciting live band with quirky songs to a more serious, Marxists-in-cardigans look but the lyrical content seems to stay consistantly focused. Curiously enough, none of the "Christian" tinged work made it onto the "Best of" album, but the Marxist influence is easy to find. What keeps this material from sounding trite or dated is great songwriting and musicianship. For me at least, it wouldn't matter much what they were singing about, the unabashedly poppy and soul-inspired songs could do it. And regardless of the lyrics' meaning, the style and phrasing is brilliant at times. There's a "coy, self-deprecation" that spreads across their work that keeps the Das Kapital references in check, too.

The best description comes perhaps as a metaphor from an anonymous messageboard: The Housemartins are the UK's Credence Clearwater Revival.

1) Associated with unpopular forms of 'root' rock. Like CCR played rootsy American tunes in an age of psychedlics, Housemartins played their 'skiffle' influenced tunes in an age of hair metal.

2) Their clothing was plain and simple. CCR: flannels. Housemartins: Cardigans

3) While their clothing perhaps made them out to seem conservative, their views were exactly the opposite. Take CCR's "Fortunate Son" and Housemartins "Sheep."

4) Both bands come from the backwoods: Northern California and Northern England. And both bands took swipes at the city folk.

5) People who might otherwise be embarrassed about liking American roots or Skiffle will admit to liking CCR or The Housemartins.

Curiously enough, their final bass player, Norman Cook, later changed his name to Fatboy Slim and made some good music videos.

And apparently the car dealer/partner-gone-bad had it coming when Hugh Whittaker attacked him with an axe.

(Buy The Best of The Housemartins at Amazon.)

Joanna Newsom - Bridges and Balloons

Joanna Newsom - The Sprout and the Bean

There always seems to be one new band or artist floating around in the world of pop culture that seems specifically manufactured to piss me off. Every time I crack open a Rolling Stone I find some band topping the charts that is so horrible it brings on an overall drop in my level of faith in humanity. Recently I have moved on from bitterly ranting to anyone who would listen about She Wants Revenge, and have found a new band to hate.

Panic! At The Disco, aside from having an awful, generic, train hopping name and playing a sickening brand of emo mall pop with cutesy Nightmare Before Hot Topic pseudo-goth undertones (and not to mention lyrics seemingly ripped from the worst livejournal ever written), are made up of mind numbingly stupid band members. I understood as I was reading the interview with their guitarist-lyricist that he was only 19, but I know plenty of 19 year olds in bands and I’m pretty sure none of them would cite Blink 182 as their biggest influence. Or refer to MXPX, Third Eye Blind and Counting Crows as some of their favorite bands. Or have “Kiss Me” by Sixpence None the Richer as their ringtone. Or count a literary hoax as one of their favorite authors. And I’m pretty sure the kids that I know that are 19 or younger, if they happened to like Joanna Newsom would not say “I just got into this girl who plays harp and sings really strange.”

Just the tone of that comment got so under my skin, the dripping of hipster cool, like he was letting me in on some underground secret or something. But then I thought about it, and I guess for a lot of people reading Rolling Stone… Joanna Newsom probably is a secret. So maybe my anger doesn’t really stem from anything Panic! At The Disco has said or done, but more the fact that a boy band with guitars is being profiled in Rolling Stone in the first place, while someone as talented as Joanna Newsom toils in semi-obscurity.

They say in film that the greatest critique is to not say anything, but to just make a better movie. So I’ll end my diatribe now and just abruptly shift into how wonderful Joanna Newsom is. I’m sure a lot of people already have these two songs; they’re both from her 2004 album The Milk-Eyed Mender, but hopefully some of you haven’t had the pleasure and I can pass on to you one of the most unique musical treasures of the last couple years.

“Bridges and Balloons” is a song that seems to have reached that instant standard status Jeff wrote about last week. It’s already been covered by a number of bands, including the Decemberists, and it’s easy to see why. I might not be smart enough to keep up with a lot of her lyrics, but my lack of literacy doesn’t dull the emotional connection she’s able to create in both “Bridges” and Milk-Eyed Mender 's single “The Sprout and the Bean”.

A lot of writers and reviewers tend to try to define Joanna by her quirkiness. Yes, she plays the harp and assorted other unconventional instruments; yes, her lyrics can be bizarre; and yes, she possesses a distinctly odd singing voice, untrained and childlike (and, I think, kind of sexy. But maybe I’m just sick.) but all of these things are inconsequential. What makes Joanna special, what sets her apart from her avant/anti/psych-folk peers and light years ahead of flavor of the month bands like Panic! At The Disco is that she simply writes great songs. Enchanting, magical songs, that will feel timeless for years to come, even if it’s not her “really strange” voice that’s singing them.

(Click here to buy The Milk-Eyed Mender on Amazon.)

Loose Fur - The Ruling Class
Loose Fur - Stupid as the Sun

I've got your sunshine weekend right here at 128 kbps.

Sitting in front of a computer for over eight hours a day might not be your favorite way to spend a day, especially when that computer is at the office. And although I have to listen quietly, the internet radio helps make my days go by much easier. At first I tuned into Indie 103.1 just to drown out the KOST that was infiltrating my ears from across the office, but as I discovered more and more strictly online stations I became a discerning listener searching out the best mix I could find.

Enter Radio Io's Edge program. "Playing the best of twenty-years of college rock and alternative... as well as today's best indie acts," Edge manages to play the perfect mix of songs I know and love as well as new stuff that I really dig. I listened for about a week to the free 128 kpbs stream via iTunes before I got totally sick of the same commercials over and over and fell totally in love with the mix of tunes. Five dollars a month seemed like a reasonable amount for 160 hours a month of good music, so I subscribed.

And it was worth it. Not only do I get the music at a CD quality stream, I get this great pop up window that refreshes each time a new song comes on. The window displays the last ten songs played as well as icon links to find out more about each song played. One click and I can buy the album online or read all about the artist. (So then I jot down the album title and label and look it up later.)

On one occasion my coworker (and drummer) asked what I was listening to. When I said Radio Io Edge, she replied, "Oh, does Sean dj that?" And yes, he does. Apparently Sean Ziebarth is a bit of a local boy who used to (still does?) dj at KUCI. He had found a copy of a Former Friend CD (our drummer and keyboardist's other band) a few months back and contacted them for his own copy.

Dude. I love this guy even more.

So thanks to Sean, this 'free' radio stream has given me a list of new CDs to buy and will most likely end up costing me a whole lot more than if I had just settled for "Steady as She Goes" nine times a day. (Though thanks to allofmp3.com I was able to get a few of those records checked off all for under $10.)

And this Loose Fur album, Born Again in the USA, did not disappoint. It moves between the glamorous discordant pop of Aladdin Sane-era Bowie, restrained, open-ended post-punk and as "The Ruling Class" shows, heavy does of The Velvet Underground.

The more you know, the more you realize how much you don't know. And I'm not too proud or elitist to admit that I know virtually nothing about Wilco. Maybe if I did, I would have been clued in to this Loose Fur side-project. Maybe having a knowledge of the Wilco catalog gives a better (or worse?) context for understanding Born Again in the USA, but if so, I wouldn't know it. Someone (anyone?) out there who's into Wilco, let me know what you think. (You can leave a comment by clicking the number next to the blog's title.)

Have a whistling weekend.

(Buy Loose Fur Born Again in the USA at Amazon.)

(Check out Radio Io, and their Edge program, here.)

Exploding Hearts - Throwaway Style

I love lists. There’s something very psychologically satisfying about having information arranged in a numbered pattern; 100 Greatest Album Covers, Top 5 Records, 50 Worst Songs, I eat that shit up. So naturally, I spend a lot of time checking my Top 25 Most Played folder on iTunes. For a music nerd who loves lists, what’s more fun than reading your own involuntary list of the songs you listen to most? Currently my list is a little bit biased though because when I’m writing for this blog I tend to listen to the song I’m writing about on repeat ad nauseum. So right now my Top 25 reads like my half of the blog, with the overwhelming number one most played song being “Thinning Air” by Ante-Meridiem. But the question remains - do I really love the song that much, or was it just the post that took me the longest to write? So the songs that are most interesting to me on the list are the ones that aren’t from the blog, and higher than any other in that minority is “Throwaway Style” by the Exploding Hearts.

As much as I enjoy this song, I never really considered writing about “Throwaway Style”. Posting it means breaking one of the cardinal rules Jeff and I imposed on ourselves because I first discovered it from another blog. But at the same time it perfectly fits our self-imposed criteria for what kind of songs to post: it’s a song I think people should hear.

It took me a long time to give the Exploding Hearts a chance. I had read the heartbreaking story about them in the summer of 2003, about how three of the four members had died in a van crash, but I had also seen the pictures that accompanied the articles. Spiky hair and skinny ties, leather jackets and bondage pants. When I was in high school, a band that looked like this (and with a Dirtnap Records pedigree no less) would have been right up my alley. But at the time their sole album Guitar Romantic was released I had all the Briefs 7 inches I needed, thank you very much, and I had little interest in another snotty new wave punk band.

Then a couple months ago (November 28, 2005 to be exact. It’s weird how a quick Google search can shape vague memories into solid dates.) I was reading Said the Gramophone (which for my money is the best written mp3 blog around) and came across this track. I still wasn’t that intrigued, but StG had never steered me wrong in the past and I happened to be at work with a superfast DSL connection so I downloaded it. I didn’t get what I was expecting to say the least.

Aside from a debt to the poppiest of early British punk bands and a healthy coat of lo-fi fuzz, Exploding Hearts have little in common with the kind of bands I had superficially lumped them in with. Bands like The Briefs and The Epoxies always felt a little gimmicky to me, coasting on (pardon the wording) throwaway style over substance, but Exploding Hearts could be Brill Building songwriters underneath their layers of eyeliner and Aquanet. “Throwaway Style” captures that elusive quality of feeling unique and fresh but at the same time instantly familiar. It’s so catchy it’ll stick in your brain after just one listen, you’ll be singing along by the second chorus.

It’s so full of energy, so overflowing with enthusiasm, it’s the kind of song you could imagine being used in a cheesy movie montage. Probably cut to images of a teenage girl jumping up and down on her bed. Hell, it makes me want to jump on my bed. It makes me want to turn the volume up full blast and dance around my living room and pray my roommate doesn’t walk in on me. There aren’t many songs that evoke feelings like that, but of songs that make me so happy I want to dance around like an idiot, “Throwaway Style” is number one on the list.

(Click here to buy Guitar Romantic from Amazon.)

The Vindictives - Bike
Pink Floyd - Bike

(Too many covers? Too soon for more Vindictives?)

Did you ever like a band because you were supposed to? When I was first getting into music, my entry way was 'classic rock' mostly via KLSX and their annual Labor Day Top 100 Countdown. One year I taped the top 25 or so and tried desperately to take note of who sang which song. There were a few tracks by Pink Floyd, who up until that point were purely a band I had seen t-shirts for. They seemed good enough and seemed to mentioned in the same breath as The Doors, Zepplin or The Who. So eventually I decided I needed to own at least Dark Side of the Moon. I listened to it a bit (since it was probably among the 6 CDs I owned) but could never totally get into it and let my interest in Pink Floyd fade away.

The story could end there. Or I could have been completely turned off to the band after I discovered just who really listened to Pink Floyd and wore those t-shirts. But whenever "Comfortably Numb" or "Money" came on the radio throughout the years, I'd at least listen for a little while before changing the station.

Harsh Segue.

The Vindictives released a double-10" of all cover songs in the mid-nineties, Partytime for Assholes, which was intended to be a tribute to the various bands but comes closer to a Dickies tribute. One of my first music-geek projects was to compile all of the original songs. This was before the days of the internet and I spent a lot of time listening to friends and digging through bargain 45 bins. I compiled most of the songs but there were a few that always alluded me.

On a random spur, I decided to get out my old CD copy of Partytime where all of the songs are combined into one long track. With my new computer skills, I realized I could finally break up that CD into a listenable version. Then I realized, why don't I just google some of these lyrics for which I never discovered the original artist.

One of the strangest songs covered is "Bike." I always wondered who could sing a song about mouse who hasn't got a house. (I don't why I call him Gerald.) The lyrics seemed almost a perfect for the Vindictives who once sang, "Everything I've got has certain places to go: a self for that thing and a drawer for that thing." And the stripped down punk version leaves a lot to the imagination as to the original music.

Google wasn't exactly straight with me. But I did find a post on someone's MySpace page with the complete lyrics attributed to S. Barrett. A little cross referencing and sure enough, "Bike" is a Pink Floyd tune. Closing out Pink Floyd's debut album, Piper at the Gates of Dawn, the deceptively simplistic structure and lyrics at the opening of the track mark a harsh contrast to the open orchestrated-noise given a minute-and-a-half in the song's finale. And keep in mind this was released within months of Sgt. Pepper's... There must have been something in the water; I think it was LSD.

(Buy Piper at the Gates of Dawn at Amazon.)
(Buy Partytime for Assholes at Amazon.)

Nas - Memory Lane (Sittin' In Da Park)

Queensbridge Houses, in Queens, N.Y., is the largest public housing project in America, providing government funded “affordable” housing to over 3,000 families. In the 1980’s these projects were one of the most important neighborhoods in the growth of hip-hop. MC Shan, Roxanne Shante, Marley Marl and many other prominent hip-hop musicians all called “The Bridge” home. But it wouldn't be until the mid-90s, after hip-hop had already flowed out of the projects and into the suburbs and West Coast “gangsta” rap was selling millions of records, that Queensbridge would see the emergence of its most influential resident and, according to himself, its most dangerous emcee.

On April 19, 1994, Nasir bin Olu Dara Jones (or just Nas to you and me) released his debut album, Illmatic. Many cite Notorious B.I.G.’s Ready To Die (released a few months later) as the album that revitalized East Coast hip-hop, but Nas’ debut redefined East Coast hip-hop. When Nas burst on the scene he was hailed as the second coming of Rakim but, while certainly Rakim paved the way, Nas took Rakim’s innovations and elevated emceeing to a higher level. No rapper had ever been as complex, no hip-hop lyricist so profound. Over a series of laid-back, jazz-inflected beats (provided by New York legends DJ Premier, Pete Rock, Q-Tip and fellow Bridge alumni Large Professor) the 20 year old rapper spun tales of drugs, crime, poverty and violence with an unprecedented poetic proficiency.

“Memory Lane (Sittin’ In Da Park)” is one of the most lyrically perfect songs ever written, capturing the gritty details of New York City street life as seen through the window of an intelligent, introspective emcee with a pen and paper as his only escape. Nas stares out of his window onto the streets below, watches drug overdoses and shoot outs, “murderous nighttimes” where “knife fights invite crimes” and writes his “retardedly bop” poetry. DJ Premier carefully crafts a lazy summer vibe for Nas to reminisce over; a head bopping beat with snapping snare drum, tinkling piano, purring background vocals, and old school scratches and vocal samples that bring back the feeling of the park jams both the producer and the rapper grew up with. For all its grimy and bloody memories, there’s something sweetly nostalgic about the song.

Upon its release Illmatic didn’t sell very well and subsequently Nas has spent the rest of his career trying to get a taste of the commercial success his peers have received. Occasionally he still exhibits flashes of the brilliance that characterized his first record, but he’s never equaled it. And maybe he couldn’t if he tried. Illmatic is such a towering masterpiece that even in the midst of Nas' much hyped fued with Jay-Z, Jay had to admit it was a great record. (Although he did point out the inconsistency – “that’s a one-hot-album-every-ten-year average”. ) As critic Hartley Goldstein put it: “Illmatic is the meticulously crafted essence of everything that makes hip-hop music great; it's practically a sonic strand of the genre's DNA.”

(Click here for the "Memory Lane" lyrics on the Online Hip-Hop Lyric Archive.)

(Click here to buy Illmatic on Amazon.)

Milemarker - Landlord
Milemarker - Cryogenic Sleep

The best and worst thing about working at a copy shop is that everyone asks you for favors. It worked out well a few times as I hooked up various local bands with demo or seven-inch covers or the locals art co-op with some new signage and flyers. And then sometimes friends of friends would want the hook up and things got more complicated. It's one thing to put my job on the line for something I support; it's something else entirely if someone who I don't even hang out with wants free stuff.

So a friend of a friend had some photos of a band and wanted to make them into posters. There were about 5 different pics and if I made an 18"x24" digital print of each I'd be ripping off Paul Orfella for around $180. I wasn't prepared to do that for someone I had barely even met once. (Though she did convince me to buy Le Tigre's first record the one and only time I met her at Noise Noise Noise.)

So I decided to make the posters on the blueprint copier (called an Óce by those in the biz). I scanned in the photos, half-toned them and everything, just to get the best possible results from the line-art reproducer. And while I'm scanning in the photos I think, wow, these guys look really cool (read: these guys dress like me and have similar haircuts.) When my friend came to pick up the posters (and was disappointed they weren't in color), I made to ask who this band was. Milemarker.

Coincidences generally occur in three and are rarely a happenstance. Soon after I was reading whatever the hip magazine of the day was, either Punk Planet or Skyskraper and came across a review of Milemarker's Anesthetic. The review only fueled my interest in this new band and informed me that Al Burian, who regularly writes columns for Punk Planet, was a founding member of Milemarker. Oh, I had to get this record.

But apparently it wasn't as important as getting the new Zeke record because I took my 'lunch' break at OCC to drive up to Vinyl Solution on Zeke mission. But after a B-line to the Z-section, my mission was a failure. And like all music junkies I decided to just look around and pick up something else to get my fix.

A CD packaged in all pink with a pegasus gracing it's cover caught my eye in the M's. Worth purchasing on the appeal of the cover art alone, it was the new Milemarker album I had read about.

And I didn't really like it.

Maybe six months later I decided to give the Milemarker disc another try. I can distinctly remember pulling into the Home Depot parking lot to buy art project materials and not wanting to stop the CD. This time something was different; I was ready for this. I'm not sure why "Shrink to Fit" (Anesthetic's opening track) didn't catch me right away on first listen, maybe I didn't it up loud enough. But on this occasion all the elements were in place and when "A Quick Trip to the Clinic" blared out of my stereo speakers as I pulled into that Home Depot I knew I was hooked.

I've kept up with Milemarker throughout their releases and collected some of the albums which came out before Anesthetic. (Including Frigid Forms Sell You Warmth, which is one of the greatest album titles of all time, and contains what I'd call my 'favorite' Milemarker song, "Sex Jam Two: Insect Incest," and its close runner-up, "Cryogenic Sleep.")

"Landlord" makes it way to your ear from Milemarker's fifth and latest album, Ominosity. Released back in October of 2005, I was only recently able to pick up a copy of this disk. Normally I can't stand psuedo-journalistic text in band's promotional schpeals, but this time all the hype hits the mark. Ominosity really does sounds like the album Milemarker has been trying to make all along... and I loved the earlier work. This is some twisted news for new listeners because if you don't like this album you most likely won't like the other ones, and if you go out and buy this album first it's may seem all down hill from there. But, I'm going to post "Cryogenic Sleep" just for some sort of context and perhaps even if you fall in love with Ominosity you can still find the gems on the other records.

You can download two other tracks from Ominosity here.

(Buy Ominosity at Insound.)
(Buy Frigid Forms Sell You Warmth at Insound.)

Allotria Jazzband - Lady Madonna

This week has been fun, we’ve gotten to geek out pretty exhaustively and we’ve gotten to share some really great songs, but I’m about to put the nail in the coffin. This is my Beatles covers trump card. This is the greatest Beatles cover song of all time, possibly the greatest cover song of all time period, and definitely the best record I ever bought for a dollar at a thrift store.

I was considering a number of different approaches for writing about this. Do I try to verbalize what makes this song so awesome, pinpointing the moment (probably about when the heavily accented vocals come in) that it transcends novelty and enters the realm of unadulterated genius? Or do I do a straight research based post, informing you that the Allotria Jazzband formed in 1969 and are still around today and have put out dozens of records on the Bellaphon label? Do I try to tie this song in to a grander point about the Beatles’ worldwide influence, the power of their songs and their ability to be translated into different genres and appreciated by all different cultures?

In the end I decided that none of these approaches were really necessary. It’s a cover of “Lady Madonna” by a German ragtime band. If ever there was a song that speaks for itself, this is it.

(The record this is on, Jubilee, is out of print. But for other Allotria Jazzband LPs, and probably your best bet at finding Jubilee, check out JazzLPs.com)

Sufjan Stevens - What Goes On
The Skatalites - Independent Anniversary Ska
Paul Weller - Sexy Sadie

Do you know that song "Chicken Reel" or "Turkey in the Straw?" Your first answer might be 'no,' but if I hummed a few bars you'd most likely reply, 'Oh, that's what that song is called.' Through Looney Toons and commercial jingles, you've most likely been exposed to these songs; they have entered the collective unconscious.

And while I'm deathly afraid of the folks who think "Surf City" is a Beach Boys song, I have a feeling they are growing in number. As music becomes "ubiquitous as water" in our culture, it stands a chance of becoming just as bland and rote. If you were forced to listen to your local Oldies station daily, you'd probably get completely sick of their 20-song playlist. You might not care to remember that Them sang "Gloria," like you might not have bothered to find out that Caplinger's Cumberland Mountain Entertainers do a killer version of the Chicken Reel. Or that name of the song played in every cartoon when an assembly line is featured is "Powerhouse" by Raymond Scott.

But there is something potent and relevant in approaching a song that everyone knows, that hold a place in the collective unconscious. The main reason you have tunes that are considered 'standards' in a genre like Jazz, is the heavy reliance on improvisation within that genre. There was a time when most people knew the melody to "Misty" or "Take the A Train," so when they heard an avant garde arrangement they could recognize where it was being altered, improved or broken down. A standard could also be an opportunity for showmanship and impressaro performance. When the listener has a context for the tune, the musician can play with the listener's expectations.

Maybe that's why I'm a sucker for tracks like Ted Leo covering Kelly Clarkson or Arcade Fire playing Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Maybe these are today's 'standards' and maybe their life-span is growing increasingly shorter. (Or backwards as with Iron and Wine and Postal Service.)

These three tracks all start with a Beatles song and treat like a standard. There is no rock-god reverence, just using a song in the pop music vernacular to launch their own creativity. The beauty in these tracks in how much they reinvent these songs, like a good cover should.

When I listen to Rubber Soul, I usually skip "What Goes On." I've never really been able to get into the Ringo songs, but Sufjan's version completely flips the script. And I don't usually go for much pre-Rubber Soul material but this ska version of "I Should Have Known Better" (dubbed "Independent Anniversary Ska") by The Skatalites makes perfect sense to me. And Paul Weller brings it all together with his blue-eyed soul rendition of "Sexy Sadie." And while Mr. Weller doesn't push the original nearly as far as Stevens or the Skatalites, maybe there's just enough of a difference in arrangement to hear what he's going for... taking a shot at recreating one of the most beautiful songs ever written. You can hear his respect for the original maybe just a little more than you can hear his desire to remain fresh. So as a "standard cover" goes, I think Sufjan just left The Jam man in the dust. (But it should be noted that I believe Weller is honoring the song, not deifying it, nor trying to pass it off as his own a la Quiet Riot covering "C'mon Feel the Noise.")

But if you never paid attention to the Beatles, then maybe these are just some more pop songs floating about in the ether. If you never thought it was important to remember just who sang "I Wanna Hold Your Hand," then you probably aren't even reading this, but I think we all know people like this. Maybe it's someone at your job, at school, or maybe even a relative, but surely we all know people who just don't care. I think I just feel sorry for all they miss out on. And I shudder when I imagine a future where listeners relate to "Love Me Do" like we relate to "Turkey in the Straw."

"Ignorance of your culture is not considered cool."

(Buy This Bird Has Flown at Amazon.)

(Buy The Skatalites at Amazon.)

(Buy Paul Weller at Amazon.)

Knoc-turn'al - Muzik

Paul McCartney - Old Siam Sir

A Tribe Called Quest - Luck of Lucien

When Jeff first had the idea to do a Beatles cover collaboration I immediately knew I wanted to do something with the Beatles and hip-hop. The Beatles, believe it or not, have been part of hip-hop since the beginning. The drum break from “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” is one of the classic breaks of early hip-hop, a perennial favorite of Afrika Bambaataa and other New York DJs in the 1970’s, spun alongside “Apache” and “Scorpio” to equal b-boy enthusiasm. But while those songs, along with artists like James Brown and Parliament/Funkadelic, and at this point at least a song or two from almost every major rock and roll band, have been absorbed into the hip-hop musicscape, the Beatles never have. In the 80’s the Beatles were sampled as rampantly as any other artist for hip-hop beats, but once copyright law changed to finally catch up with rap music (as usual the music business was about 10 years behind. See also: digital downloading.) the Beatles faded out of the canon. To understand why this is, it helps to know a little about publishing.

The Beatles catalogue is generally accepted to be one of the most valuable in the music business, worth an estimated $500 million and showing no signs of wavering in popularity. The owner of the vast majority of this catalogue (basically anything written after 1963) is, as I think most people know, Michael Jackson. But what I think a lot of people misunderstand is that what Michael Jackson owns (actually now, thanks to a spiraling debt problem, half-owns along with Sony) is the Beatles publishing; their songs as intellectual property. To put it in slightly oversimplified terms: if you want to cover a Beatles song, quote a Beatles song, play it on the radio or play it in a public place – the money goes to Michael and Sony. But if you want to use a Beatles recording, the money goes to Paul, Ringo and the widows of John and George. (The Beatles are one of the few bands who do actually own their own masters. Normally your record company owns your recordings and you are paid an artist royalty.) This difference between publishing and recording becomes key when we’re talking about sampling because U.S. copyright law requires you to have both a mechanical license (Michael/Sony) and a master use license (John, Paul, George, Ringo) to use a sample. Both of these licenses require a large sum of money, a relinquishing of some portion of the copyright, and permission. And if you pay enough attention to hip-hop you will notice - the Beatles don’t give permission.

The reason the Beatles pop up on several seminal early hip-hop recordings is that in those days the music business wasn’t paying much attention to sampling, or to rap music in general. It was considered a passing fad. And although sampling had existed for years (The Beatles of course ironically being pioneers of sampling in pop music via songs like “Tomorrow Never Knows” and “Revolution #9”), there was never much money to be made in it. Hip-hop changed that. It changed everything people knew about sampling. Producers began to use sampling not just as a studio novelty but as the backbone of their compositions; they forged a new artistic aesthetic, invented new rules that didn’t give a fuck about the musical conventions of the western world. In these days before the regulation of sampling, if artists did object to their songs being pillaged for beats, they received a one time fee for use of their composition. But once the industry realized that, not only was this rap music thing here to stay but it had turned into a multi-million dollar industry under their noses, laws regarding sampling changed and a new era of hip-hop was ushered in.

Some people don’t get the difference; a lot of people in my class when I studied this in school couldn’t comprehend why owning part of the copyright of a song was more substantial than receiving a one-time fee, even one for hundreds of thousands of dollars. A one-time fee can be spent up over a weekend, but owning the publishing of a hit song can keep you rich for the rest of your life. One of my teachers used the example of two songwriting friends of hers who wrote a song in 1980 that they were trying to pitch to Rod Stewart. Before Rod could even hear the song his record company gave it instead to another artist on their roster. The songwriters at first were disappointed that the considerably less successful Olivia Newton-John was going to record their song. Now they never have to work again. They can live comfortably for the rest of their lives off the royalties generated by the ridiculous refrain “Let’s Get Physical”.

But despite the financial gain to be made by sharing copyright of a potential hit song, The Beatles have never officially licensed a sample for a hip-hop recording. Paul McCartney is especially notorious for not clearing samples. But, to be fair, he’s spent decades since the Beatles split fighting court battles over copyrights, ownership and royalties, with both record companies and band members and then suffered the heartbreaking blow in 1985 of being outbid by Michael Jackson for the publishing to his own songs. So I understand him being a little wary about giving permission for someone to fuck with his music. One of the rare exceptions where Paul granted sample clearance wasn’t even for the Beatles, it was for a relatively obscure Wings track from the 1979 album Back To The Egg.

It may seem a little like cheating in a Beatles covers week to talk about sampling, and then to further depart from the theme by posting a song that samples a post-Beatles Paul McCartney, but “Muzik” is just too good not to post. The song, by west coast rapper Knoc-Turn’Al, was a modest radio hit a couple years ago and was produced (pre explosive fame) by none other than Kanye West. Although most heralded for his sped-up soul technique, Kanye knows a killer rock and roll hook when he hears it (see also Jay-Z’s “Takeover”) and the beat in “Old Siam Sir” is absolutely vicious. Knoc-Turn’Al is an emcee who’s not the most technically skillful; his flow and vocabulary are basic and he’s not particularly clever, but what he lacks in these areas he more than makes up for in pure hunger. He rips into the beat with such energy it doesn’t matter that he’s more ranting than rapping. (I saw him in concert around the time this song was garnering radio play and he was just as electrifying on stage.) The song also boasts an incredible swaggering falsetto chorus. It doesn’t sound like Kanye or Knoc-Turn’Al, and whoever it is isn’t credited in the album’s liner notes, but it’s the best part of the song for me.

I had a tough time narrowing it down to just one hip-hop song that samples the actual Beatles. A couple Boogie Down Productions tracks were in the running, as was the Beatles-sampling medley “The Sounds of Science” from the Beastie Boys' Paul’s Boutique album, but I was only going to post that if I could find an instrumental version of it. But I think the song that best illustrates the ideas of today’s post is “Luck of Lucien” from A Tribe Called Quest’s stellar debut album People’s Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm. Listen carefully. No, not that cracking snare drum beat. Not the softly thumping bass line. Not even the prominent horn pattern. It’s the couple of brass notes under the main horn melody and, even I'm not positive but I think, the echoing two-chord guitar pattern. Sound familiar? Of course not, that’s why I picked it. It’s a sample from “All You Need Is Love” by the Beatles.

It’s a concept that doesn’t exist today; you rarely hear multiple samples in the same song, let alone a hint of a sample so subtle as to be unrecognizable. This kind of sampling is financially inconceivable now. Now if you are going to go to the trouble of clearing and paying for a sample, and then get lucky enough to get permission, you’re going to use it as much as possible. Maybe add your own drums and bass line, maybe adjust the tempo, but otherwise these expensive acquisitions remain intact. “Luck of Lucien” is a song that couldn’t be recorded in this modern era of hip hop. Gone are the Prince Paul and Bomb Squad days of collage-sample production where you would lift a single kick drum from a James Brown record, or a few stray brass stabs from a Beatles song, just because you liked the way they sounded. And it’s not a coincidence that time in hip-hop is referred to as “The Golden Age.”

(Click here to buy the Knoc-turn'al EP L.A. Confidential Presents on Amazon.)

(Click here to buy Back To The Egg on Amazon.)

(Click here to buy People's Instinctive Travels on Amazon.)

Merman/Ozone - With a Little Help from my Friends
Merman/Ozone - I Am the Walrus
Merman/Ozone - The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill
Merman/Ozone - Happiness is a Warm Gun
I Feel So Pixelated - When I'm C64

I had a few SID tunes that were Beatles covers and researched them to death... Only to stumble upon Merman/Ozone's demo site. See, the beauty of an old system like Commodore 64 is the "ease" with which one can create their own games or music, often called 'demos.' I used to create little text-based games for my Commodore by copying in the Basic code from my monthly 3-2-1 Contact Magazine. But in the hands of a true musician/composer, the SID chip can astound you. Merman takes on the daunting task of recomposing some of the Beatles later work on his The Beatles Anthology v.II. I'm sorry to give you so many songs, but it was hard enough narrowing it down to these four.

One of my favorite things about chip music, SID tunes in particular, is the limitations of the technology. Like The Beatles were able to produce Sgt. Pepper... with 'simply' a four-track, SID composers face the challenge of composing using only three-voices. Breaking a song down into elemental units, down to the necessties, often allows the listener the ability to realize how truly intricate these compositions are.

Generally, Merman attempts to remain true to the original tunes note-for-note; it's the medium that's important. But his sped-up rendering of "Happiness is a Warm Gun," is my latest jam. I love it when those drums kick in. Of course, that's probably my gun-to-my-head favorite Beatles song... so it doesn't hurt to start with something I already love. (Though that could be dangerous too, as in his rendition of "Flying.")

And imagine trying to recreate the studio magic of "I Am the Walrus," yet somehow his SID version captures the spirit of the original in a completely new context.

Merman (Andrew Fisher) also has some Spice Girls and Blur demos and some Mr. Men and Pokemon slideshows for your C64 emulator. If you'd like to check them out...(Click Here.)

I've also posted "When I'm C64," by my entree into the remix/home-electronica forum, I Feel So Pixelated. I'm pretty sure the lyrics were inspired by Jan Lund Thomsen's podcast, The C64 Take-Away, but I could have totally dreamt that up too. I had a 30-second sample of "When I'm 64" and wanted to add something to it... so I added a drum track, bass line and some vocals. It may possibly be the geekiest thing I've ever done. (Even topping the Patrik Remix by A.M.)

(Download The C64 Take-Away Podcast)

(Download more from Merman. {Emulator Req.})

Al Green - I Want To Hold Your Hand

Aretha Franklin - The Long and Winding Road

The Supremes - A Hard Day's Night

So here’s our first crack at a themed week on Cacophony. It’s kind of a weird theme to start off with because, as a general rule, I hate Beatles covers. It’s a tricky proposition to cover a song by the Beatles because you know your cover is never going to be better than the original. The worst offenders are television commercials; you hear a lot of horrible bar band bargain bin versions of classic Beatles songs in commercials because it’s cheaper to just license the song and not use the master. There was an especially awful “Got To Get You In To My Life” in some ad for flat screen TVs awhile ago that was so vomit-inducing I would have to change the channel whenever it came on. But the Beatles aren’t untouchable, it is possible to do a Beatles song and avoid the pitfalls of paling in comparison by making it your own and adding something fresh to something timeless.

The great thing about Al Green’s take on “I Want To Hold Your Hand” is that he lets you know right from the beginning that he’s not taking this too seriously. After a couple seconds of joking around with the band, Green whispers “alright man, goddamn” and then tears into a reinterpretation of the Beatles’ first American hit that’s so loose and swinging it sails along on charm alone. It sounds like a couple of guys just jamming in their garage (if their garage had a full soul horn section in it) and its sense of fun is infectious. Green plays around with not just the melody but the lyrics as well, adding his own inflections and slyly changing the refrain “I can’t hide” to the often misheard “I get high”. “I Want To Hold Your Hand” was originally left off his second album, 1970’s Green Is Blue, in favor of a more straightforward cover of “Get Back” (it has since been included as a bonus track on the CD reissue), but foregoing the usual reverence in Beatles covers is the key to what makes this track work.

Similarly irreverent, and equally sublime, is Aretha Franklin’s version of “The Long and Winding Road”. Readers who’ve been down since day one may recall that my very first post was an Aretha song; this song is from the same record, Young, Gifted and Black, and almost everything I had to say about that song holds true for “The Long and Winding Road”. Her voice is like a natural wonder of the world, the musicians she assembled for this record are a who’s who roster of soul giants, and her ability to deconstruct and reinvigorate someone else’s song is unparalleled. Also, in her choice to take on Let It Be's sappiest McCartney composition, Aretha recognizes that a good way to pull off covering the Beatles is to pick a song that wasn’t that great to begin with. Her version retains little of the schmaltzy balladry of the original; it finds the gospel heart of the song, adding a swirling church organ, a backup choir, and a touch of funk on the galloping call and response outro.

And rounding out today’s selections are the Supremes, because you couldn’t do a soul-themed Beatles covers post without talking about Motown. The Beatles covered a number of Motown songs in their early years, and the love appeared to be mutual as virtually every major Motown act covered a Beatles tune at one point or another. But what’s most interesting about Diana Ross and company doing “A Hard Day’s Night” is that it totally demolishes the idea that you can’t do a faithful rendition of a Beatles song. The only difference between the two versions is the vocals. Everything else, down to the copied note for note guitar solo, is performed as scripted. But at the same time it still sounds like a Supremes song, it's got the indelibly catchy chorus, it's filled to the brim with hooks, and has that unmistakable Detroit dance beat. It shows how indebted the Beatles were, even long past their cover band clubbing days, to Berry Gordy, girl groups and the “sound of young America.”

Be sure to stay tuned for the rest of the week, both Jeff and I have plenty more great Beatles covers in the vaults.


(Click here to buy Green Is Blue on Amazon.)

(If you didn't buy Young, Gifted and Black the first time I recommended it, click here to buy it on Amazon.)

(Click here to buy Motown Meets the Beatles on Amazon.)

The Vindictives - Assembly Line
The Vindictives - ...and the world isn't flat anymore

I haven't had a 'real,' full-time job since January 2002. I worked at Kinko's for over four years prior to that, from when I was 18 to 22. Perhaps numerically that's not a whole lot of time but anyone who's made it past twenty-five can attest to how hard those years really are. Some pop psychologists have coined the term, "Quarter Life Crisis," because the same general symptoms seem to be widespread. At some point after leaving high school, or college, most people have to confront the fact that they will now be working at a job for their rest of their lives. Reality kicks in and it leaves an ever-growing bruise.

For those of you who met me recently, it may be hard to envision me in this period. I don't think Patrick believed me when I first told him about how I'd spike the free coffee with Drain-o, but I was so full of rage and depression then. Let's face it, the prospect of basically wasting away your life at a stupid job is horrendously depressing and dealing with the public daily is enough to instill rage in Tibetan monks.

But the quarter-life crisis was not something that we actually talked about in Psych 100 so I thought I was just losing my mind. It seemed like everyone was completely capable and complicit with this daily grind. I thought maybe I had some kind of Persecution Complex or Oppositional Authority Disorder. I was forced to read a Dr. Dobson book to Prepare for Adolescence, but nobody told me that 'real life' was so absolutely shitty. The Vindictives helped me out immensely. Singing along to Joey's lyrics as I collected my two-dollars in change for the toll road from OCC to my Kinko's was really what kept me going. Belting out "you can't control me" over a wall of backing vocals, doubling Joey on "don't let them make you think you're weird" or "you look at me and shake your head and say that I'm not sane / While watching sitcom reruns is the highpoint of your day," seemed the closest thing to reassurance I could find. Punk is filled with disaffected voices but something in The Vindictives lyrics and sound resonated with me. I'd heard all about why I should hate my job and the cops and that I should burn the church, the cross and the money that makes us hate, but I never heard a lyric and said, 'that song's written for me,' until I heard 'Assembly Line.'

Like I said earlier, I was working at Kinko's, so I photocopied the lyrics and thumbtacked them to my bedroom wall. I tacked them up right by my closet so every morning as I cinched up my tie or packed my book bag I could remember that it was okay not to be one of them. I could remind myself that their 'vulgar anecdotes won't lure me into an assembly-line life.' And there's something more than the sum of the words there, an unspoken hopefulness to the self-deprecating anthem. Of course there's the not-so-subtle mocking of the square culture too, but the closing line became my mantra: It's my intention to defend my volition.

"...and the world isn't flat anymore," had to be posted in this context as well. First of all, just take the title (and repeated ad nauseum outro), the phrase is packed with meaning. Considering the second and third lines of the song, "And if I change my mind about things / I know that I will change it again" this song touched on something I'd been thinking about a lot lately. As we laugh at Columbus' neigh-sayers with our contemporary knowledge that world is indeed round, what are we wrong about today? What will the future being laughing at us about? "...and the world" closes out The Many Moods of the Vindictives and seems to offer Joey's summation of everything addressed previously. Yeah, this life is pretty shitty and it will most likely make you crazy and it's full of emptiness... but we do have a chance at a better future. It's a far cry from a political song but as I became more jaded against my own political ideals, the idea of long-term evolution rather than a drastic revolution seemed more and more realistic. And it empowered me. I couldn't start Marx's dictatorship of the proletariat but I could live my life in a way that didn't embrace our culture's answers to our current problems. I could live a good life and hope that it would catch on, inspire mutation. Maybe if I treated everyone I encounter in life like a human being then my customers might not treat me like shit... and the world isn't flat anymore. You're a living time bomb.

('Assembly Line' Lyrics)
('...and the world isn't flat anymore' Lyrics)

(Buy The Vindictives The Many Moods of the Vindictives at Amazon.)

The Real Kids - All Kindsa Girls

I was the character department manager, Dave was the atmosphere department manager. I won’t bore you with the details of what these job titles meant, the only real distinction I could see since I had been promoted from shift supervisor was that the higher up in this company I went the less work I did. Dave and I shared an office and we basically spent most of our days hiding from the photographers we were supposed to be managing, occasionally fixing a camera or two, but mostly listening to and talking about music.

Even when Dave had been my boss, we had a special rapport. When I wanted to go home for the day he would force me to answer music trivia questions. Sometimes they were easy, like what’s Iggy Pop’s real name, but sometimes they were impossible, completely biased questions of taste. Once he asked me what my favorite David Bowie song was. I answered “Sorrow”. He made me work overtime. When we started sharing an office he would bring in a stack of CD’s every morning that would be our playlist for the day. The stack was always different, they were always bands I had never heard of, and they were always really fucking good.

One day I tried to show off by bringing in my own stack of CDs, a musical selection I had deliberated on and agonized over for weeks, bands I knew Dave couldn’t possibly be familiar with. The first CD I put on was Le Shok’s We Are Electrocution. I was sitting there listening to Hot Rodd Todd sneer “fucking’s only fucking when you’re only 16” (a line that seemed a lot more brilliant to me at the time, when I was just a couple years past 16 myself), feeling very proud of my musical knowledge, when Dave cut right through my self-satisfaction and muttered casually, “these guys really love the Fall.” Shit. Who the fuck were the Fall?

Dave always had the answer for bands that I liked; I’d play him the carbon copies and he’d open my eyes to the originals. My exposure to the Real Kids, and to 70’s power pop in general, first came from him after I made the mistake of admitting that I was a big Teenage Fanclub fan. “Here,” he told me the next day as he pushed a freshly recorded cassette tape copy of the Real Kids’ eponymous 1976 album into my hands, “they’re from Boston. You’ll like them.”

“All Kindsa Girls” may not be the best song on the record, but it’s definitely my favorite. Maybe because it’s the first song, so it was the first thing I heard, but when the drums started after that false intro, this was the song that kick-started a love affair that took me from the Real Kids to bands like the Raspberries, Big Star and the Nerves. (The Nerves post seems to have gotten a lot of positive feedback, hence this trip down power pop memory lane). This song has been on a ton of compilations so it’s kind of an obvious choice, one I’m not sure Dave would approve of. (I should have gone with something more obscure, something that’s not even off the self-titled record. Everybody has that one.) But hopefully he will count it as a personal triumph that if somebody ever played Teenage Fanclub for me now, I could say “these guys must really love the Real Kids.”

(Click here to buy it on Amazon.)

ESL - Bellevue Mental Hospital
ESL - Come Home
Tales from the Birdbath - Baron Von Birdbath
Sicko- Indie Rock Daydream

Sicko played their final show in Seattle, Summer of 1998. It was the same Summer my grandfather passed away. And while that might seem like a harsh segue, I opted to stay in Southern California for funeral services rather than join my friends on their pilgrimage north to see Sicko's last show. Of course, I heard all about it and Dave even wrote a song for our band ESL immortalizing the experience. (I even got to do my best Ean impression/tribute on the backing vocals.)

But my memories of Washington are much more complex and almost bipolar... and of course they too involve Sicko. When ESL 'toured' up the West Coast we had a nice long stay in Olympia that culminated with a show not far in Bellevue. Our tour was totally D.I.Y. which meant we were booked at an all-ages Boys and Girls club. But it also meant that we were responsible for setting it up in advance. As a shot in the dark, Dave suggested we ask Ean's new band, Tales from the Birdbath, to play with us. After informing us that Birdbath didn't quite have the same following as Sicko (read: no one will come), Ean agreed to play the show.

Similarly to Sicko getting to record their debut seven-inch with Kurt Block, playing with Ean, even if it wasn't with Sicko, was like a dream come true. And even though nobody came except for two kids and the guy whose house we were staying at in Olympia, I can still remember knowing that I was playing for Ean. That dude from Sicko was listening to my band. I was so far from home yet I felt so at ease and so 'successful.' It's hard to sum it all up.

But as we were packing up our gear something happened. The best I can piece together is that Matt, our drummer for the tour, called Dave's mom a 'fat, Catholic bitch,' and the next thing I knew Matt was chasing Dave down the streets of Bellevue pleading, "Just talk to me." And Dave was insistent that he'd just kick Matt's ass if he didn't just give him some space. End result: Matt was at the SeaTac Airport in a matter of hours and our at-home drummer was on the Greyhound bound for Vegas, our next stop.

I can't remember being as elated and fulfilled as I was playing for/with Ean. I can't remember ever being as angry and full of rage as when I saw the whole thing seem to fall apart.

Of course Dave wrote a song about that night too. There's some geographical inconsistency but I think Dave says "Seattle" just because Bellevue was too obscure. I'm pretty sure that I came up with the title for the song because I honestly believed that Bellevue Mental Hospital was in the town we played. (I can still remember when Dr. Kinsman informed me that Bellevue was actually in New York...but whatever, that makes it a more clever play on words.)

So I've posted 'Bellevue Mental Hospital' so you can get Dave's take on the whole situation with a bit of salt. While it's not my favorite song that we ever recorded, I'm glad that there is a documentation of the event beyond my own memory. (And I still like my Buggles-esque backing vocals.)

I've also posted 'Come Home' from ESL's seven-inch, M.I.O.K., because I think it shows best how much ESL was indebted to Sicko. I'm not sure if any of my songs sound anything like Sicko, but Dave certainly had an affinity for those jangle-y guitars and big hooks. It's not a pure tribute; there's a heavy serving of Orange County punk in the mix and it's a lot faster. But I still think you can hear it. This actually is one of my favorite ESL songs and curiously enough Dave wrote it about someone he and I both ended up dating. (And having our hearts broken by... Dr. Kinsman's daughter actually.)

You lucky readers also get the opportunity to download 'Olympia' by Tales from the Birdbath. You can definitely hear the end result of the Sicko trajectory in Birdbath. It's a stripped-down pop song with a winking sense of humor. My favorite lines are "It's a nice place to visit but I wouldn't want to stay / O-L-Y-M-P-A / That's Olympa. Olympa!" Birdbath played 'Olympia' that night and it was just perfect. Our host even apologized afterwards for booing when the song was introduced. "I live there though," Ben said. Ean replied calmly from under his sweat-drenched t-shirt labeled "" on front and "" on the back, "No, that's exactly what someone from Olympia is supposed to do." Even if you've never been to Olympia you can get a kick out a sugary-sweet pop song glorifying the K and Kill Rock Stars uber-hipsters up north. (Though I did actually see Sun Moon's little brother working at the local record store.) And if you did go to Evergreen (or ever dreamed of it) then you can get a knowing laugh about going "to a college where you don't get grades."

And to sum it all up, to bring this three-day thread to a close, is Ean's beautifully written 'Indie Rock Daydream' from Sicko's final album, You're not the Boss of Me. As if knowing the end was imminent, Ean pens a touching rendering of the experiences of playing with Sicko, encapsulating their entire career in under two minutes. It's the details that make it: playing at the YMCA, pretty girls leaving with someone else, and sleeping on the floors of the world. It's not the same story as Motley Crue or even Black Flag but it's the story of countless bands in the D.I.Y. culture. And soon enough, this will all be gone.

(Buy Sicko You're Not the Boss of Me from Amazon.)

(Buy Tales from the Birdbath Baron Von Birdbath from Amazon.)

(Buy ESL Horseshoes and Handgrenades from me, bitches)

Elvis Costello & The Attractions - Battered Old Bird (album version)

Elvis Costello & The Attractions - Battered Old Bird (alternate version)

Alternate versions of songs, unless we’re talking about Coltrane or something, are predominately fan-only affairs. In jazz, where improvisation is essential and there’s no such thing as a “definitive” version of a song, hearing an alternate take can be revelatory. But in rock and roll? The exceptions where an alternate take adds anything new to the experience of the original are few and far between. Elvis Costello’s “Battered Old Bird”, from his 1986 album Blood & Chocolate, is unique in that the album version of the song (itself sewn together from two different takes) and the alternate version are considerably different but equally good.

For the last couple years Rhino has been releasing sets of Elvis Costello albums, packaged as double discs with the original album remastered on one and a collection of alternate takes, live tracks and B-sides on the other. Mostly these bonus discs only serve to make apparent why the album versions were used or why the B-sides were considered throw aways. (The most recent Rhino reissue, of 1993’s The Juliet Letters, is particularly curious in it’s scraping of the bottom of the Costello catalogue. How big a market could there possibly be for outtakes of a poor-selling and mostly forgotten foray into string quartet classical music?) But if you decide to start investing in any Elvis reissues, Blood & Chocolate is a wise place to start.

Don’t let the release date scare you, despite dropping in the same year as the atrocious roots-rock mess King Of America, Blood & Chocolate is an Attractions-era masterpiece on par with the best (My Aim Is True through Get Happy) of early Elvis. As it appears on the album “Battered Old Bird” is a classic Costello song, similar to trademark anti-love songs like “Alison” – it’s slow but it’s too angry to be classified as a ballad. The instruments in the background are incidental; a slight tapping of drums, a few quiet guitar chords, hints of piano. But Costello, his voice and his lyrics are all that matter. It could have been a cappella and been just as gut wrenching.

He is the perfect songwriter, able to put common situations into words that few could articulate. Here he unravels a story of a house, a landlady, her pill-popping husband and their French-cursing son. But the mundane details are transformed through Costello’s pen into a vividly surreal scene; the house becomes a place “where time stands still”, the husband swallows “sleeping pills like dreams” and tells the son to have a “dream that goes beyond four walls". Keeping a fir tree in a closet becomes a place where “it is always Christmas at the top of the stairs.” Each line is painstakingly stretched, instruments routinely drop out to add emphasis to certain phrases, Costello’s voice quivers in places as he pushes it to its breaking point. The song is deliberate but not sluggish, and necessarily so. Or so I thought.

On the Blood & Chocolate bonus disc’s alternate version, “Battered Old Bird” is warped into a full speed ahead rave up. The emotional resonance of the album version is left in the dust of a breakneck-paced 12 bar blues, the bitterness gives away to humor, the dark and disturbing images become comical. Elvis and his soon-to-be-disbanded Attractions choose the most serious piece on their album and sound like they’re having a great time tearing it apart. You can understand why it was left off the album that Costello described as a “pissed-off, 32-year-old divorcé's version of This Year's Model”, but it’s hard to think of either as a definitive version. I love them both, in different ways, for different reasons. Right now, gun to my head, I would have to say that I prefer the faster take. But it might be different tomorrow. Either way, at least one of the disc’s of Blood & Chocolate is never gone from my CD player for long.

(Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Sicko - Sprinkler
Sicko - Bad Situation
Sicko - 80 Dollars

In the Spring of 1992, Sicko recorded their demo cassette in a basement somewhere in Washington. Of the songs which made their way to be rerecorded for the debut seven-inch was a little ditty called "fB Song." Named after the infamous Washington icons, Fastbacks, Sicko's tune about not 'necessarily hat(ing) the establishment," must have touched a nerve in Fastback's guitar hero, Kurt Bloch. For some reason or another, Bloch was persuaded to record the session for Sicko's debut seven-inch on eMpTy Records.

Imagine doing your first 'real' recording as a band with one of your heros. Imagine getting to record your tribute song with the man who helped inspire it. I suppose it would be a lot like George Martin producing Oasis' demo tape or Prince laying down tracks with Justin Timberlake before he ever stole our hearts with 'N Sync.

Growing up I always thought Sicko was among the pantheon of 90s pop-punk bands like Screeching Weasel, The Queers and The Mr. T Experience. Nowadays I rarely find anyone who recognizes even these bands, let alone Sicko. (My heart skipped a beat when a barely-18-years-old lanky drummer said he was really into Crimpshrine a few months back.) In my mind and among my circle of friends, Sicko was just as important as Dead Kennedys and The Dead Milkmen: full iconic, canonized status.

I've posted three tracks that Sicko recorded with Kurt Bloch over the years. "Sprinkler," from You Can Feel the Love in This Room, 1994, Sicko's first album, features Denny on the vocals keeping it real for the kids who grew up in suburbia. A nostaglic ode to times gone by could be totally cheesy but somehow manages to stay "cute" and remain "poignant." This is one of a group of Sicko songs that really immortalize Denny as a songwriter for me. (And as a sidenote, the clean-guitar/distorted-guitar in this song essentially set the template for the pop punk I played in.)

"Bad Situation" is probably the fastest that Ean ever sings on any of the Sicko records, this track coming from their third album, Chef Boy 'R' U Dumb, 1995. Ean and Denny switched-off with lead vocal duties and even between bass and guitar, but there's some general differences to their song writing approach. Ean is generally more narrative and fanciful and playful, where Denny is generally more introspective and poetic. The beauty of the band was having both parts together, alternating between tracks.

"80 Dollars" features a brilliant use of the dual-vocal setup where Denny sings the verses about Ean, who gets to bring the hook, "It cost me eighty-dollars!" This track was recorded in 1992 (released as a split seven-inch with The Mr. T Experience) and remains to be the best song about a guitar tuner ever written and features the most rhythmically complex solo bridge in the pop punk annuls.

(Buy You Can Feel the Love in This Room from Amazon.)

(Buy Chef Boy 'R' U Dumb from Amazon.)