A Quiet Good Night

Monsters Of Folk - The Sandman, The Brakeman and Me

Where ROCK LIVED

In my school back in Jersey, during the 70s, when it came to radio stations you were pretty much either an WNEW fan or a WPLJ fan. I was the former, because WNEW played the first airings I ever heard of songs by Elvis Costello, the Clash, Graham Parker, Ian Hunter, the Ramones, the Good Rats, the Boomtown Rats, Greg Kihn, and so many other artists who cured me of my then-diet of not much more than Billy Joel and Beatles. WPLJ acted as if none of those artists existed. They stuck with the usual mainstream basics of what eventually became known as 'Classic Rock'. Sure, WNEW played that stuff, too, and plenty of it -- just not as often, and they stuck in the hip 'n' cool stuff where they could. Also, whereas WPLJ had popular, sexy, throaty hottie Carole Miller, those of us with a certain appreciation of smart women preferred Meg Griffin (who, like many of her compeers, is now working on satellite radio). And most importantly to me personally, it's the station where I always first heard the new Springsteen single, and where I first learned of John Lennon's death, no small events they.

WNEW was just a radio station, and probably not really even a very good radio station (by the time I left Jersey it had sunk into a deep and lousy shitty state), but it left its mark on my musical soul just the same.

Yer Morning Moptops

Brian Wilson with Paul McCartney, "A Friend Like You"

A Quiet Good Night

I Shall Be Released

ALBUMS I SHALL NEVER LISTEN TO AGAIN ON ACCOUNT OF I HAVE HEARD THEM ALL I EVER WANT TO HEAR THEM, EVER, UNTIL THE END OF TIME, AND IN SOME CASES I DIDN'T EVEN REALLY LIKE THEM IN THE FIRST PLACE, I JUST FIGURED THEY HAD TO BE GOOD BECAUSE EVERYONE LIKED THEM SO MUCH, BUT NOW I KNOW BETTER. SO DON'T EVEN.

This list is non-negotiable.

1. The Doors, The Doors' Greatest Hits
2. The Who, Tommy
3. The Rolling Stones, Some Girls
4. Anything by The Grateful Dead
5. Cream, Disraeli Gears
6. U2, Rattle and Hum
7. The entire Eagles catalog, especially Hotel California and whichever one had that crappy godawful "Take It Easy" and that one about sleeping with you in the desert tonight (they may all be on Hotel California, what's great is I'll never have to know)
8. Every Pink Floyd album, except strangely enough Dark Side of the Moon
9. Led Zeppelin 4
10. Fucking Meat Loaf, Bat Out of Hell

Free at last! Free at last!

Same As the Old Boss

Missed this somehow:  Streets of Fire: Bruce Springsteen in Photographs and Lyrics, 1977-79

Probably my favorite era of Springsteen, looks-wise, as these kinds of things go. I dug the Elvis sideburns, the troubled look, the messy, greasy, just-woke-up hair, the skinny build. (Strangely, it was a look I could relate to.)



Of course, you can imagine my shock upon seeing this big dope on TV just a few years later:

 I mean geeeezzz...

Jokerman

I decided I wanted to do a Dylan blog  post, because like any right-thinking musical type rocker person, Dylan is in my blood, and once you have a blog, well, you gotta do a Dylan post, right?

Well, after aborting my first, incredibly boring idea ("My Top 10 Dylan Songs" -- who cares?), I started wondering whether anyone had compiled a Top Ten worst Dylan song list, and, this being the Internet Age and all, the answer was "well of course someone has compiled a Top 10 Worst Dylan Song List."

Zepblog: 

BobFest: 10 Worst Dylan Songs

Yer Morning Moptops

John Lennon, "Only You"

And A Quiet Good Night.

From Lone Star (1996), directed by John Sayles
"My Love Is" by Little Willie John

Best Cool Guy Driving Late At Night While Sexy Song Plays Movie Scene ever.

(For a better view, watch it on YouTube. The embedded version is all messed up for some reason.)

Swipe File

Badfinger, "Day After Day"

has pretty much the same intro as



Joe Jackson, "Breaking Us in Two"

Great Lyrics, Part 1

"He wandered far from the accustomed haunts of boys, and sought desolate places that were in harmony with his spirit." - Mark Twain, Tom Sawyer

(OK, yes, technically Tom Sawyer is not a song, unless you're a fan of Rush, which I am not, and technically those are not 'lyrics' as such. It is however a great line.)

Yer Morning Moptops

Rosie Flores, "While My Guitar Gently Weeps"

New Direction Home

I am adding to and altering the mission and object of this blog. It will continue to be the step-by-step chronicle of my already-titled CD, Abandoned and Heartbroke, but I will also be using it to discuss and  celebrate music (mostly pop music) and its surrounding culture  -- which can include nearly everything. Nothing grand or monumental is planned here, just my view of pop and what it has meant to me all my life. Perhaps it will mean something to you. Mostly I will keep the tone breezy and fun, but I have no doubt it will veer often into the realm of pompous and perhaps even stupid. But even those realms can be their own brand of fun.

I intend and hope for this blog to be participatory, meaning that ideally it will generate discussion and disagreement, and anyone who would like to chime in can consider the blog as much their home as it is mine. I also intend and hope to feature guest bloggers, so if there is something in particular you would like to say or have said, email me and we'll pop it up on the thing.

There won't be a long blather every day, but there will be a post every day. I have gotten into the habit of posting videos quite often on Facebook, sometimes based on a theme or a topic, or other times a specific genre or era of music, so I will be shifting that habit over here (while linking it onto my Facebook wall). But there will be something posted here every day, so I hope at least some of it will be entertaining enough for people to make a habit of visiting.

Going Down (Hard)

Next new song in the queue: a rewrite of "When You Go Down". I took a rough version to Dave and he made several great suggestions, steering me especially through melody lines and making them more interesting and not so obvious. He is also responsible for the nifty broken-pause delivery of the end of each line in the verse. I think there needs to be a transition between verses, maybe the intro (which I am hearing with Juke-type horns), but otherwise I b'lieve we are on our way.

Oh, and one last detail: I am changing the title to "When You FALL Down". The chorus was "when you go down, you go down HARD", which is just beggin' for mockery. I'm probably gonna have enough problems....

When You Go (Fall) Down - June 2012

Tuesday Night Live Redux

Returned once again tonight to JV's for the bi-weekly Songwriter Showcase hosted by Daryl Jr Cline (who writes and performs some exquisite songs, check him out why doncha). This time, Dave played electric atop my Takaminin', and once again we performed the usual first three tracks from the album. This time however I felt we were really getting somewhere. For one thing, we rehearsed -- always a good plan -- and for another, I am slowly feeling my way back to playing live. I have been away from performing for a good long time, and it shows, but tonight felt good, like a breakthrough had occurred. There's nothing particularly zingy about "South Street" or "One More Day to Rain" that merits their posting this time, but I really felt "Into the Night" soar into an entirely new form. I think it's the best version I've done in nearly thirty years of playing the song. Give it a listen and let me know what you  think.

Into the Night - JV's, June 12, 2012