The Red Perspective

The Best Of 2005: Music

2005-12-18T11:30:00.000-08:00

Want to here how the music industry is changing (for the umpteenth time)? I was hard-pressed to come up with 10 albums I kept listening to constantly this year.... but narrowing down a list of 20 great singles was hard. Yep, it's an iTunes world and we're all living in it. There's still nothing better than an out-of-the-blue album that knocks you sideways for 45 minutes, though, and all of my choices have that quality in spades. These probably won't be the ones you'll see on critics polls and Grammy shortlists, which is all the more reason to hunt them down. The 20 Best Singles (excluding songs from the 10 Best Albums, at the risk of repeating myself) boast a lot of songs you'll probably recognize and a few you won't, some from career artists and some from flash-in-the-pans. But they define 2005 for me as much as anything. Besides, any list with Sufjan Stevens AND The Pussycat Dolls deserves some measure of respect, right?
Hope these lists bring back fond (or foul) memories of 2005 for you, and maybe turn you on to some worthy candidates you missed along the way.........
--Rich

THE TEN BEST ALBUMS OF 2005

1. Josh Rouse - Nashville (Rykodisc) The sleeper album of the year. No gimmicks, no tricks, no hipness quotient: Just perfectly-written, perfectly-executed pop music that breaks your heart in a thousand different ways.
2. Fiona Apple - Extraordinary Machine (Epic). Finally, a break-up disc as messy and honest as a real break-up. More importantly, it casts Fiona's substantial gifts in a startling new light, elevating her from "where-are-they now" status to groundbreaking artist in a single breathtaking stroke.
3. Death Cab For Cutie - Plans (Atlantic). Or Indie Boys Make Good, Part 36. Get over the major-label backlash and listen to this album for what it is, a worthy follow-up to Transatlanticism that retains its spirit of hopeful melancholy from start to finish.
4. My Morning Jacket - Z (ATO). College rock weirdness meets jam-band adventurousness, held together by Jim James' epic voice and rapidly expanding songcraft.
5. Nada Surf - The Weight Is A Gift (Barsuk). Remember when Weezer wrote actual songs, with hooks that stayed in your head for days and lyrics that twisted like a knife in your chest? In other words, remember when Weezer was good? This left-field triumph will remind you.
6. Queens Of The Stone Age - Lullabies To Paralyze (Interscope). Nevermind that it's basically the Josh Homme solo project now: This is prime QOTSA, sludgy and strange and more than a little scary. System Of A Down tried mightily, but this is the heavy album of 2005.
7. Sun Kil Moon - Tiny Cities (Caldo Verde) The gimmick is that every song is a Modest Mouse cover, but the reality sounds like nothing insomuch as a continuation of Mark Kozalek's clear-eyed vision: Haunted, gorgeous songs that float through your head like ghosts afterwards.
8. Coldplay - X & Y (Capitol). Underrated? With every critic worth his salt taking potshots, it's worth noting that Chris & the boys are three for three with this one, and if the arena-ready production lacks the simpler charms of Parachutes, soaring anthems like "Talk" and "Fix You" more than make up the difference.
9. The Mars Volta - Frances The Mute (Universal). Prog-rock comprised of equal parts hardcore and Buena Vista Social Club, with baffling song titles, horror-movie dynamics, and jaw-dropping technique. The only thing more wonderfully bizarre than this disc is how it managed to debut in the Billboard Top Five back in March.
10. Wilco - Kicking Television: Live In Chicago (Nonesuch). Normally live albums wouldn't make the list, but then again, few live albums manage to take a well-respected band's last two acclaimed records and make every song stronger, deeper, and better.

THE TWENTY BEST SINGLES OF 2005

1. The Killers - "Mr. Brightside" A million and one plays later, this clever new-wave update still feels fresh and hummable. Plus, like every good single, it makes you want to roll down the windows and drive faster.
2. Snow Patrol - "Run" In which a relatively unknown Irish band manages to beat Coldplay at their own game with the best Britpop anthem since, well, "Yellow." Honorable mentions to Embrace ("Ashes"), Doves ("Black And White Town"), and yes, Coldplay ("Fix You").
3. M83 - "Don't Save Us From The Flames" The first filmmaker who uses this soaring near-instrumental to score his (or her) own cinematic finale is a genius. And yes, the commercials got there first.
4. My Chemical Romance - "I'm Not Okay (I Promise)" Radio fell for "Helena" later in the year, but this driving single--tuneful, catchy, and not a little bratty--sealed the deal well beforehand.
5. Amerie - "One Thing" One Meters sample + one diva in love = One inescapeable summer jam.
6. U2 - "Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own" In the midst of U2's current victory lap, there are still some pundits insisting the band doesn't write songs on the level of "Pride" or "One" anymore. This is Exhibit A for the defense.
7. Gorillaz featuring De La Soul - "Feel Good Inc." Aging Daisy Age rappers steal the show from a cartoon band as Danger Mouse whips up his take on 21st century booty music.
8. LCD Soundsystem - "Daft Punk Is Playing At My House" Is it ironic or just tragic that this club-banger for record geeks was miles beyond everything on Daft Punk's own new album?
9. John Legend - "Ordinary People" In the wasteland that has become R&B radio, lo and behold an actual song appeared. And the people rejoiced, and waited for other well-composed songs to follow. And waited. And waited.....
10. Rilo Kiley - "Portions For Foxes" The drums kick, the guitars shudder, and Jenny Lewis coos "Baby I'm bad news" with equal parts sensuality and menace: This is the sound of the indie crowd in makeout mode.
11. nine inch nails - "The Hand That Feeds" Trent Reznor may have unfortunately hedged his bets on With Teeth, but at least the leadoff single still kicked like NIN of old, a "Head Like A Hole" for the Iraqi War generation.
12. Kanye West featuring Jamie Foxx - "Gold Digger" In which Kanye stops shooting off his mouth and gets down to making beats like he used to, as Jamie Foxx paints himself into a Ray Charles-sized corner.
13. Foo Fighters - "Best Of You" Because if Dave Grohl shredding his vocal cords for 4 minutes and 15 seconds is wrong, I don't want to be right.
14. Green Day - "Wake Me Up When September Ends" Possibly the best song from possibly the group's best album, with a video good enough to make you remember when videos meant something.
15. Pussycat Dolls featuring Busta Rhymes - "Don't Cha" Take a six-girl burlesque troupe from Los Angeles with only one actual singer between them. Add a past-his-prime rapper with as much street cred as Ja Rule. Cover a song recorded not six months earlier by a (since-dropped) R&B unknown. Throw in some trampolines. Presto! Instant hit!
16. Fall Out Boy - "Sugar We're Goin' Down" Still not as good as Jimmy Eat World, but since nobody was buying Jimmy this year, I suppose I'll settle for the next-best pop-punk on the market.
17. The Game and 50 Cent - "Hate It Or Love It" Before the public falling out, before the crappy movie and crappier soundtrack, this was the peak of Fiddy's year, trading rhymes with his protege over an old-school sample that bumped like the first Biggie album.
18. Sufjan Stevens - "John Wayne Gacy, Jr." Quiet and humanized and all the more disconcerting for it, the standout track from the flawed-but-brilliant Come On Feel The Illinoise!
19. System Of A Down - "B.Y.O.B." From anti-war thrash to frat-boy anthem and back again, with Serj Tankian screaming "Why do they always send the poor?" like John Forgerty with ADD.
20. Kelly Clarkson - "Since U Been Gone" I give, Kelly, I give. Just don't tell those other American Idol idiots where you're hiding all the good writer/producers.

20 ½. Bell X1 - "Eve, The Apple Of My Eye" They're Irish and they have no deal here in America and you'll never hear this on American radio (although you can iTune it, surprise surprise) and it didn't even come out in 2005, but I'd be remiss if I didn't include the one song I listened to over and over for large stretches of my life this year. If there's a sadder song of 2005, I don't think I can handle it....

On Behalf Of Tiny Miracles

2005-10-06T22:07:00.000-07:00

First things first: My Honda is back, safe and sound and (mostly) none the worse for wear. OK, he had a blown front tire and a busted parking light and a banged-up bumper... but otherwise decent. And NOTHING stolen. Can you believe that? Do car thieves REALLY hate my choice in music that much??
But I do think my Honda is starting to look at me the way your old dog looks at you after a particularly bad trip to the vet. Did I do something to offend you? Why do you keep doing this to me?? I wish I could explain to my Honda that it wasn't my fault that he's been rear-ended twice, broken into twice (stolen CDs the first time, ripped-out ignition the second), and now stolen. I'd explain to him that scars build character, and obviously he's still got it after all these miles if people are willing to commit a felony to joyride him for a while.
However... Since cars are not actually alive and I'm not actually crazy, I don't actually tell my car any of this. In fact, I actually start thinking about how soon I can replace this Honda for one with better theft protection. Hope he doesn't get suspicious....
But in all seriousness, I am deeply amazed my car turned up at almost 100%. I truly believe the good Lord was looking out for me with this one. Everyone acts like miracles occurred thousands of years ago (water to wine, walking on water, etc) and nothing much happens today. I say my car being found a block away from where it was stolen with NOTHING missing is some kind of miracle. Maybe a tiny one. But a miracle nonetheless.
More tiny miracles: Kids who grow up in the midst of today's society and still turn out 99.5% okay. A Habitat for Humanity house. The run of perfect weather we just had from late August to yesterday, before the flood rains came. A great first date. A great second date. Heck... Anytime two people actually FIND each other in this world and KNOW they're meant to be together for the rest of their life? That's a flat-out miracle in my book.
Or maybe "miraculous" depends on your vantage point. For instance... My friends will be amazed when I listen to the radio and just start playing along with the song, like I've known it all my life instead of picking it up on the spot. But to me that's just second nature and not even a big challenge. (Especially if it's a Creed song. Key of D every time.) By the same logic, a truly talented quarterback makes snap decisions and perfect throws in the seconds when someone like me would've been tackled, or crushed, or killed. Or all of the above. The genius thinkers used to talk about solving a problem as being "touched by the hand of God," while I personally feel like God Himself is singing through Van Morrison or the horn of John Coltrane. And yet these are just men and women like you or I.
And so my parents who have been together 38 years probably don't think they're part of a miracle. Neither do my former roommate and his girlfriend of 2 1/2 years (so far). Or Drew & Debbie, who were together when I met them in my freshman year of college and are just as much in love today. But as someone who has trouble making relationships last months, let alone YEARS... Those are tiny miracles, my friends. Proof that there's order somewhere in this universe and yes, maybe you DO have a soulmate out there after all.
That said... I'm no longer searching, and that's fine. I've been highly independent since Day One and living alone isn't scary to me. In fact, there are days I relish coming home to my new (and empty) house and basking in the selfish freedom of having the place to myself. And then there are times when loneliness and regret seep in and I wish I had someone sharing this life and these little moments with me.
In the end they balance each other out. Just like everything else in life. Being in love won't necessarily make your life easier or your crappy job more tolerable. Neither will being single. You take each day as it comes and you create your own happiness where you find it... in good friends, or a quality film, or an unpredictable Saturday out, or the surprisingly fine new CDs from Fiona Apple and My Morning Jacket.
Did I mention my car stereo wasn't stolen either? Tiny miracles. They're everywhere if you know where to look.

50 Ways To Be A Blogger, Or This Is Where 3 Months Go...

2005-09-20T08:18:00.000-07:00

Three months huh? June huh? Now it's September and you'd think one day I could figure this "daily blog" thing out. But until then, in no particular order, these are some things that have occurred in my odd little life since the last blog:

1) Bought a house.
2) Moved into said house.
3) Met my neighbors, all of whom are very nice and older and mostly with kids.
4) Realized said house was about 20 min. further away from all my old hangouts. Learning to adjust/find new hangouts.
5) Got very upset watching the aftermath of Katrina on TV, like everyone else. Donated lots of money, like everyone else.
6) Kinda thought Kanye West's comment had a lot of truth, unlike everyone else.
7) Cursed Katrina because it jacked gas prices up to $3.29 in Charlotte just as I was dealing with #4, above.
8) Admitted I have my selfish side (see #7 above).
9) Started going to a new YMCA. #4 in action.
10) Discovered the new Y has a lot more young high school kids. And no towel service. Coincidence?...
11) Played the "All This Useless Beauty" song from the last blog live a few times. It got better. Folks started appreciating it. That's good.
12) Tried writing a few more things and got stuck. Currently working on another song about downtown life and the casualties I meet (a la "Bar Song" from a few years back). Not much yet but a chorus and the line "Coked up to their eyeballs." I think it might turn out kinda dark.
13) Found out the girl from the last blog was way too young for me as it was.
14) Found out she also got back together with her ex while we were doing whatever it was we were doing.
15) Felt that bullet whiz past my ear.
16) Got semi-set-up with a few friends of friends. They didn't take. Either my friends are bad at this or I am. We all mean well though.
17) Spent a week on vacation with my sister & her fiancee & my parents & appreciated how my sister's engagement tends to lessen the "so when are you going to find a nice girl" talk from my parents (who also mean well).
18) Did I mention I finally bought that house? Space, man... Suddenly I have SPACE.
19) Paid more money than I've EVER paid on a TV to have something to fill up that space. In high definition.
20) Watched "West Wing" reruns in HD. Boy they look good.
21) Ditto "The Simpsons" and "The Family Guy" and probably a whole bunch of other things I'm gonna wind up Tivo-ing.
22) Got hooked on "Prison Break." Like "Oz" without the graphic violence and graphic profanity and male frontal nudity. Still not suitable for my mom though.
23) Saw "Oldboy" courtesy of my friend Terence. Twisted Korean revenge thriller with subtitles. Weird as all get-out and twice as cool. The American remake is gonna SUCK so BAD.
24) Made plans to see something else with Terence on the new HD TV. Maybe "Crash" or "Kung Fu Hustle." Or maybe we just hit the Manor and watch "The Aristocrats" in all its filthy glory.
25) Started volunteering with the youth group again. Yes I know #24 makes #25 appear baffling... That's why you shouldn't pigeonhole people. Despite the fact I go to church and don't cuss, you shouldn't expect me to start watching "7th Heaven" or voting Republican anytime soon.
26) Met our new youth leader. Havalah is young and sweet and full of energy and definitely doing God's work. I miss Veranita but I think H will be really good for the kids.
27) Called Veranita after our mission trip in July and gave her all the details/gossip for an hour straight. If everyone could shoot the breeze with their pastor we'd be a lot closer to God in this country.
28) Saw the senior-high girls who are now college freshmen when they came home for the weekend. Marvelled at how much they're maturing.
29) Met the new middle-school girls who just joined the youth group. They talked about Oreos. Marvelled that I was ever that young.
30) Worked on the Habitat house. Wore a hard hat. Realized I can hammer a nail pretty well now but I'm still no carpenter.
31) Stopped listening to BellX1 so much and replaced it with the new Death Cab For Cutie. Vowed to learn some more Death Cab songs.
32) Did learn some more Ryan Adams songs (all old ones though).
33) Saw Coldplay with my friend Ali and some truly excellent seats. Had flashes of rock stardom again, however briefly.
34) Finally played a halfway decent version of "Fix You" in tribute to #33.
35) Played a show in Clemson with Craig where I realized I have been out of college a LONG time.
36) Got my car stolen while on stage playing in Clemson.
37) Convinced people (cops, mostly) that my car was actually stolen and NOT towed or misplaced in a drunken stupor. Then convinced people that yes, cars DO get stolen in freakin' Clemson, South Carolina.
38) Came to terms with my car getting stolen although I really don't want to have to deal with a monthly car payment again.
39) Thanked the Lord that Craig was around to "crisis manage" and make some calls to the cops and find us a place to crash for the night and basically keep me from going insane 'til we got back to Charlotte.
40) Also thanked the Lord that the girl at the Enterprise car rental was incredibly cute and Southern and flirty despite the fact that I had been wearing the same shirt for 32 hours straight and probably smelled like it.
41) Realized I would also have to replace the new Death Cab since it was in the car. Along with every other CD and my stereo and my charger and even my stupid coffee mug. Yeah, this whole "stealing my property" thing is no longer cool....
42) Realized it could have been a LOT worse and no one was hurt or even scratched up so I thanked the Lord for that, too.
43) Went out with Kristin & her way-cool friends on her 26th birthday so at least the day ended better than it started. Clemson still lost in three overtimes though.
45) Bought the new Bob Dylan soundtrack so I have driving music again.
46) Also re-discovered how great the Crowded House greatest hits CD truly is.
47) Realized I sometimes wake up incredibly early on days when I don't have to wake up early and then I can't get back to sleep.
48) Decided to blog instead.
49) Vowed to REALLY start blogging weekly this time and stop being so slack.
50) Began the three-month wait until I eat all my words from #49.

See you in three months (give/take),
Rich

Swallow Up The Sadness and Other Lessons (Not) Learned

2005-06-14T18:19:00.000-07:00

There's a brand new song in the Music section. It's called "All This Useless Beauty" and it's one of those you write to keep from screaming. Literally fell out of me as I was driving and I kept having to pull over so I could write the words down and most of it wound up on the back of a warranty card in my glove compartment which was the only scrap paper I had and meanwhile I kept playing this one song by this Irish band Bell X1 over and over and so the chords are simple and don't change much and it's about as sad as anything I've written in a long damn time.
It was a bad drive.
The song I was listening to was "Eve, The Apple Of My Eye," which is a stupid title for a gorgeous song. The band is an Irish outfit called Bell X1 and they used to be Juniper when their lead singer was Damien Rice. If that tells you anything about the level of sadness this song attains. In case you're wondering, writers can get "in the zone" just like athletes and once there you never want to break the mood. So I kept replaying this one song about 15 times 'til I got everything down. The road is the tail end of 277 in Charlotte and it's a good road to write on as it literally goes nowhere for 20 miles so you have plenty of spots to pull over, scribble something down, and then start driving again. I think the warranty card was for my car CD player which still works pretty well, thanks.
I'm almost positive I cribbed the title from an old Elvis Costello album. I've never heard the album (not a fan) so I'm fairly certain I didn't (consciously) steal anything except the idea of wasted potential. Something that looks so perfect on the outside and then destroys you up close. Or perhaps I'm being melodramatic. I've been known to do that before...
The only one who's heard it so far is my good friend and roommate Kevin. He caught the first-ever run-through back at the house as it was spilling out of me after that car ride. He thinks it's incredible that a song can just appear out of nowhere as I open my mouth and I agree. On the rare occasions it happens, it is pretty amazing... A gift from God above, as it were.
Of course every circumstance around it feels more like a curse. (Is that dramatic irony or situational irony? Help me Alanis...) And I'd just as soon write some happy songs every now and then, thanks. That was the impetus behind "Swallow Up The Sadness," which was penned some seven years ago (1998?) under very similar circumstances and now feels like the spitting cousin to "Beauty." (They share the same chords anyway.) It's the age-old trade-off between good art versus a good life: Do you want to be early Billy Joel with a chip on your shoulder and the songs to prove it, or do you want to be later Billy Joel, happily married to Christie Brinkley and writing stupid crap like "We Didn't Start The Fire"??
But back to "Swallow Up The Sadness." That was a purger too, one of those gut-wrenching break-your-heart ones that you don't get too often and thank your emotional health for that. I seem to remember it prompted a pretty good sea change in my life afterwards, so maybe I've got that to look forward to again. I hope so. Continually writing about the heartbreak in your life and all the people who do you wrong is a dead end as you get older, because after a while the simple truth is that you yourself are making these bad decisions. And really, man... By this point you should know better. I mean, you can't turn feelings on and off like a faucet--but nobody's holding a gun to your head either and forcing you to follow your heart through to the bitter end, well after the point when logic dictates that things are going to end badly.

I think I'm dashing myself on the rocks to get a better view of the wreckage...

That's me in 1998, being remarkably self-aware for a change. Shame I haven't progressed much past that point.

But I would give up all the songs I have yet to write, just to feel my fingers brush the hair from your eyes....

Thank God I still believe in that line too.

Take care everyone,
Rich

A Little Bit Of This, A Little Bit Of That

2005-04-23T13:48:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting here writing this from my back porch on a beautiful Saturday spring afternoon, temperature hovering at 65, slight breeze from the Northeast. (Actually, that's not entirely true. I thought about writing this while sitting on my back porch three minutes ago. But since I don't have a laptop, I had to go upstairs to the bedroom where my computer is located. Then I had to log on to write this blog, except I couldn't remember my password, or--more precisely--forgot that my username is NOT, in fact, filthyrich. Despite the fact that DJ Filthy Rich has been my fake DJ name ever since I've been a fake DJ, somewhere around 1997 or so. So the kind people at Blogger sent me an email containing my password. Except they didn't send it to me. They sent it to the REAL filthyrich, or at least the real person on Blogger.com who uses that handle. So, filthyrich, if you happen to read this, I'm sorry for clogging your Inbox with yet another useless email.)
On a side note, if the following rambling explanation doesn't give you insight into WHY it's taken me four months to write another blog, you probably shouldn't be reading this in the first place.
So anyway, I'm writing this in the nearby vicinity of my back porch, and I'm reading a remarkably great book given to me by a friend who obviously knows WAY more about my state of mind than he lets on. It's called Sex, Drugs And Cocoa Puffs by Chuck Klosterman, a former (current?) writer at SPIN, which makes sense because it's a collection of semi-coherent rambling essays on all facets of pop culture, similar to 95% of the articles in SPIN. (Or at least 95% of the articles that were in SPIN in the late '90s to early '00s, when I actually kept up with the magazine on a monthly basis.)
This blog is not necessarily a book endorsement, although it might serve that function as well. Rather, it's me rambling semi-coherently on all the reasons why my blogs tend to be quite similar to Klosterman's own ramblings, except his are published in book form and (presumably) make him a nice chunk of change, while I publish these blogs for free when I feel like it. (Approximately every four months or so.) But it's not like I'm building up four months of ideas here. This idea is, as of 4:55 PM, approximately 12 minutes old. And 3 of those minutes were spent inadvertently harassing filthyrich on Blogger.com.
So far, ol' Chuck has discussed the reasons why he will never fall in love with a woman and why women will never fall in love with him, and most of those reasons center around the concept of "fake love" as perpetrated by commercial artistry, such as the movie When Harry Met Sally (your best friend really IS your soulmate) and Coldplay (the stars really ARE yellow), for instance. It also hypothesizes that all women of my generation are really in love with John Cusack, or--more precisely--John Cusack as Lloyd Dobbler in Say Anything, creating an expectation for romance that can never really exist in the real world. And that's just the FIRST chapter. And who am I to argue with any of this? The boy is dead-on. No one I know has ever won a woman back by holding a boombox outside her window on a Sunday morning, yet we all think that, one day, the right woman will come into our lives, and we'll lose her for a moment but ultimately win her in the end through an amazing display of selflessness and compassion that somehow involves holding electronic equipment aloft while Peter Gabriel sings. (Note to DVD extras lovers: Check the bonus features on Say Anything for footage of Cusack holding the boombox with the original song playing. Something by Fishbone. Not the same effect, needless to say.)
Right now, Chuck just slew me by explaining the REAL reason why Kid Rock so vehemently hates Radiohead in every article/interview you read. (It actually involves a strange connection between Kid, Pam Anderson, and Tommy Lee. And here I thought he was just a tasteless redneck from Detroit.) But I'm finding it hard to focus because there's an outdoor "festival" of some sort going on in the Dilworth neighborhood of Charlotte right now. (They're probably calling it a "SouthEnd" something-or-other, and, if you're not a Charlotte resident, you have no idea what I'm talking about.) I'm assuming it's a festival, because there's a crappy cover band playing music. I can't actually VOUCH for the existence of said cover band, as I'm not in the immediate vicinity. I can, however, hear the lead vocals wafting across the springtime air as I read, and this explains my lack of concentration. See, the lead (female) vocalist was singing "The Game Of Love," by Santana featuring Michelle Branch, the #1 single from his less-successful follow-up to the multi-Grammy-winning Supernatural, and she was doing it with enough skill that I assumed--for a moment--someone in an adjoining apartment was washing his/her car while playing a Santana CD, before I realized that No one under the age of 45 would wash a car in public to a Santana CD. Or Michelle Branch, for that matter.
And it was at that second when I realized how the vocals were slightly "off" from the original recording. And that there was really no other music to speak of behind these vocals. Due to the nature of sound traveling through air (or something with the Doppler Effect), all I could hear was the female singer. Nothing else. She could be fronting an aging hair metal band, or a country group, or a vaguely R&B/dance/funk/disco ensemble that seems to play every twentysomething wine-drinking social function within the city limits of Charlotte, NC. (Another good one for the residents.) I didn't know, and it didn't matter. Here I was, reading essays on pop culture that jump from one topic to the next with random brilliance, and meanwhile this girl and her unknown band were providing the perfect soundtrack.
Her next selection was "Panama," by Van Halen, off their #1 album 1984. I can't imagine a song more quintessentially male, yet this vocalist handled herself well, singing lines about "keeping the moving parts clean" with the timbre of early '80s Pat Benatar. And I remembered how, when I was a kid, every girl wanted to sing like Pat--that combination of street sass, attitude, and pitch-perfect high notes--and now that type of vocalist doesn't exist, outside of free outdoor SouthEnd festivals. Every girl under the age of 25 now wants to sing like Mariah Carey channeling Whitney Houston, and the "best" ones wind up on American Idol doing just that, which is one more good reason NOT to watch American Idol. The ones who can't quite pull that off--and believe me, there are a LOT--wind up sounding more like Britney Spears, which isn't a bad commercial skill to have, judging by the success of Hilary Duff, JoJo, and my AutoTuned gal herself, Lindsey Lohan. Whereas, if you aim for Pat Benatar and fail, you sound a lot like Ashlee Simpson (sans backing tapes). And no one wants THAT.
Now the vocalist is tackling Teena Marie's "Lovergirl." (It was the only Top 10 hit for white R&B sensation Marie, and it wound up in the Casey Kasem year-end countdown of 1984 directly behind Billy Ocean's "Loverboy," a neat bit of pop serendipity too perfect to be planned. See, I can't remember anything from the three Physics courses I took during my first two years of college, but I can remember THIS. Sad. And a little pathetic too.) And I realize that there is, currently, no station on the FM dial anywhere in America where I could possibly tune in and here "The Game Of Love," "Panama," and "Lovergirl" back to back. (And I seriously doubt XM has one either. But maybe they're working on it.) And yet, that's exactly what has just happened. Unannounced. To me. As I sit here on my porch reading a book about pop culture.
To Unknown Vocalist Fronting Unknown Cover Band, I salute you. For your Pat Benatar vocals, for your random song selections, and for all the memories you inadvertently stirred up. You see, I can still clearly recall the first time I knew I was going to be in a rock band. I'm not talking about watching Def Leppard or Eddie Van Halen on the fledgling MTV network and going, "I want to be a rock star." I'm talking about the more concrete, humdrum act of watching an average, everyday, run-of-the-mill high school cover band ply their wares in public and realizing, I could do this. It was Snellville Days Weekend in Snellville, GA, in May of my 7th grade year, and some nameless band was playing "Jungle Love" by The Time on a makeshift stage overlooking a manmade lake. I don't think the singer even knew all the words. He sure didn't sing them all correctly. But they hit that groove, they worked that one chord sequence over and over for five minutes, and some little random kid in the audience had an epiphany. Or, more precisely, decided to start taking guitar lessons that summer.
If I could find the members of that random band right now, I would shake their hands and individually thank them. Despite their baffled looks, I suspect they would appreciate it somehow. 'Til then, I'll collectively toast Chuck Klosterman and the Unknown Female Vocalist for hoisting the flag of unpredictability aloft in a safe-and-predictable Clear Channel World (TM).
I'm back downstairs to resume my reading now and seriously consider buying a laptop. I'm hoping for a rocked-out version of the Breeders' "Cannonball" next. But I'd settle for "Hit Me With Your Best Shot."

Your pal,
Rich

How Do Rumors Get Started?

2004-12-07T06:30:00.000-08:00

Random thoughts on watching the new Lindsey Lohan video:

It's a shame Lindsey's breasts can't just sing this ridiculous song for her.
Since they already run every other aspect of her career.

Apparently there's now a "Britney" setting on the AutoTune.
By the way, the "Ashlee Simpson" setting is the same patch as the "Avril Lavigne" setting, only it malfunctions more often.

Speaking of Britney... Why is her "My Perogative" a cover of the Bobby Brown song, but Lindsey's "Rumors" is not a cover of Timex Social Club?

Timex Social Club. Now THAT was a frivolous pop act that knew it was a frivolous pop act.

You know music is in bad shape when you're getting nostalgic for Timex Social Club. Heck, I'd even settle for "Situation #9" by their Club Nouveau spin-off. Are you listening, Chingy? This is how you get your career back! More Timex Social Club covers.

Loved you in Mean Girls, Lindsey. Sorry about the whole music thing.

I just need some time, some time to get away,
Rich

Cast The First Punch

2004-11-24T08:54:00.000-08:00

Try as you might, you can't escape the images from last week's Pacers / Pistons game. Over and over, the cup flies down from the rafters, nailing Ron Artest as he lies on the scorer's table. Again and again, he jumps up in a blind fury, leaping into the stands to punch innocent and not-so-innocent fans alike. I watch that terrified little kid, crying in his mother's arms, probably the first-ever pro basketball game he's attended in his life, and wonder how it's come to this. How pro sports--and especially the NBA--got so messed up. How the idea of "respect" and "protecting your house" now means charging into the stands to attack the paying customers. How the NBA recovers from this is beyond me. Do they recover? If not, good riddance. Sometimes the machine is broken and you fix it. Sometimes the machine is broken and you throw it away and build a new one.
It was the same problem in hip-hop not so long ago. East Coast vs. West Coast and the level of "respect" that certain millionaire rappers didn't accord other millionaire rappers. It ended with two of the brightest stars in hip-hop being gunned down within months of each other, their mythology now an unstoppable market force as well as a cautionary tale.
It was mostly make-believe, of course, only some people (like Suge Knight) weren't pretending and other people died as a result. You would think the NBA stars would realize that, too. The game is just a game and the fans are just like any other people. Loyal in one moment and jackasses in the next. I wonder if Ron Artest was computing the math and realizing that the fan he was punching doesn't make as much in one year as he had just made in the last two and a half hours.
Then again, most of those fans aren't unemployed for the next year. And thanks to Artest and good lawyers, they may be getting quite a bit of money from the NBA pretty soon as well.
I doubt Artest cares. He's got a hip-hop CD to promote or some crap like that. You'd think the music industry would've learned from the non-successes of Shaquille O'Neal, Chris Webber (check the bargain bins), and Deion Sanders ("Must Be The Money" indeed). Then again, you think the music industry would've learned from Milli Vanilli. Yet each generation gets the Ashlee Simpson it deserves.
Those who forget their history are doomed to repeat it? How about "those who profit off history can repeat it and profit off it again and again." I believe it is possible to watch a given hour of VH1 and see Milli Vanilli (and New Kids, and Paula Abdul, and Vanilla Ice) held up for ridicule on an episode of "I Love The 80s / 90s / Insert Your Decade Here," followed immediately by the hyping of the latest AshleeJessicaBritney Simpson video, with no (intentional) irony attached. Followed by an episode of "Best Week Ever" that will mock the hand that fed it not moments earlier.
We can barely swallow our pop culture before we reguritate it, turn on it, spit it out and swallow the next item on the list. It won't be long before Britney's making a comeback. It won't be long before Artest is making his. Does anyone even remember Latrell Sprewell chocking his coach anymore? The coach is gone from the NBA now... Does it even matter?
Five years from now, I wonder if us Clemson alumni will remember 2004 as the year we didn't go to a bowl because our players behaved ridiculously and shamefully in the last five minutes of an already-decided game with arch rivals South Carolina (who also behaved ridiculously and shamefully). Or will the confusion of history lump everything together... amazing Miami win + jaw-dropping Duke loss + ugly South Carolina brawl = Forgettable season.
I hope not. I hope this is a lesson everyone learns and chooses NOT to repeat. In the long run, that will matter far more than a fairly meaningless bowl at the end of a fairly disappointing season.
We all make mistakes. It'd be nice to see some learning from said mistakes once in a while.

Return Of The Living Dead

2004-11-07T19:45:00.000-08:00

Hey all,
I bet you thought I'd died, dropped off the planet, entered the witness protection program, or moved to Canada after the results of the last election. When, in fact, the truth is much simpler and stupider.
I got lazy.
Bored.
Burned out.
Stopped writing journal entries for a short time that became a long time that became a paralysis because I would have to write something to make up for the last seven months of not writing.
And here we are. I'm blogging and you're reading. No pressure, no subtext, no alterior motives. You probably found this through the Red Perspective webpage, even if Red Perspective as a band, or idea, or music-playing entity doesn't really exist much anymore. (Or, at the very least, it doesn't get out and play shows like it used to.)
I'll address that whole long topic in time. Probably. But not at this precise moment. Give me a few entries to just talk about nothing, the way Seinfeld used to do. Or at least throw out a few topics for discussion in the next few entries...
Death Cab For Cutie. Can't stop listening to 'em. Still. Postal Service falls under that umbrella as well. Also Snow Patrol and The Blue Nile and Jimmy Eat World, bless their power-pop little hearts.
Garden State. Eternal Sunshine. Clerks on DVD (again). Saw for you low-budget horror fans. Can't wait for Sideways to premiere in Charlotte. Glad Jackie's still around so I have someone to go to the Manor with.
Politics?... Nah. I voted Tuesday morning and didn't sleep well Tuesday night, but that's over and done with now. I pray for our President and so should you. 'Nuff said.
The Daily Show religiously. And Scrubs. God bless DVR (TiVo for you non-Time Warner subscribers.) Season premiere of The Simpsons is on in five minutes, so I'd best wrap this up. Be safe and good and remember that, if Clemson can beat Miami in the Orange Bowl, anything is possible.

Your newest blogger,
Rich