Friday, December 21, 2012

CHRISTMAS CAROLS THAT WON'T GIVE YOU AN EMBOLISM


Somewhere out there, evil elves cackle with glee every  time the Muzak supervisor at the mall pops in the Christmas CD, the same Christmas CD that every other mall uses, every other supermarket, every other elevator, every other... because they know they are slowly driving folks mad.

I love John Lennon, but by mid-December, I would rather declare war than listen to "Happy Xmas, War Is Over" one more time.  It's worlds better than his counterpart's "Wonderful Christmastime," but listening to the song repeatedly is akin to waterboarding or other measures of torture that are against international law.

Frank and Dean and Bing and even Burl Ives are great to listen to when the mercury dips, but their Christmas carols desensitize a person to the point where no rational human can hear their voices without having a holly, jolly stroke. 

And I'll choke anyone who keys up anything by an American Idol or any teenage country star.  Consider yourself warned.
Grumpy-christmas_large
I am not, by any means, a Scrooge.  I love Christmas carols.  I love the fact that Dean Martin can make attempted date rape sounds so smooth with "Baby, It's Cold Outside."  (Seriously, what is in that drink?)  Frank and Nancy's "I Wouldn't Trade Christmas" is the reason for the season and Mele Kalikimama most definitely is the thing to say... for about a week in December.  But enough is enough.  It's overkill. 

It could be that the Christmas shopping season starts earlier every year, it could be that the songs are old, but most likely it is that the same songs get played on repeat FAR too often every year.

So I give those of you who like Christmas music but tired of the same-ol', same-ol', a little gift from me to you to stick under your tree. 

TOP TEN CHRISTMAS SONGS THEY AIN'T PLAYING IN THE MALL


The Empress of the Blues... What a lady.  In an industry that was notoriously unkind to both women and blacks, Bessie Smith refused to be disrespected or cheated.  Known for throwing tantrums in front of a venue when deals were broken, folks learned quickly not to deny Bessie Smith what was promised.  A wonderful and amazing career was cut short when, after an auto accident outside of Clarksdale, she was refused medical treatment by white doctors and forced to seek help in a black clinic.  That clinic is now a motel down the street from one of the last remaining jukes, further cementing her place in blues mythology.


There are many songs to choose from on the Blackstone Valley Sinners' The Cold Hard Truth About Christmas, but Slim Cessna's haunting lyrics and sad melody juxtaposed against the holly, jolly-ness

Monday, December 3, 2012

THE MURDER BALLAD -- 'TIS THE SEASON


A strange tradition seems to pop up every December.  Right around the holidays, in that familiest of family times, folks either reach for the eggnog or reach for the shotgun.  One minute, Dad's asking you to pass the potatoes, the next minute, he's shooting Mom in the face.

The murder-suicide is a hot topic this time of year.  No matter the occasion, the motive, or the location, 'tis the season to take out a couple of family members and then yourself.  Holiday murder-suicides are older than Peanuts Christmas specials.  There's no need to post any recent tragedies because that would just plain be rubbernecking.  But horrible events this time of year have been well documented in both media and song.

Which brings us to today's topic: The Murder Ballad.  Why some murders warrant a song that transcends time and others don't is beyond me, but back in the day and out in the hills, there was no better way to communicate the horrors of a good, honest murder than to sing about it.  The worse the crime, the better the song.

So sit back with someone you love this holiday season and, rather than club them to death, relax with a cautionary tale murder ballad or two.  Or three.  As it turns out, my little village of North Carolina is chock full of them.  For instance...

 


At Christmas, 1929, a tobacco farmer named Charlie Lawson in Germanton, North Carolina, took his wife and seven children to town to get their pictures taken in their new clothes.  He then took them home and systematically, one by one, killed them all.  After using a shotgun to both shoot and bludgeon them, he positioned their bodies with their hands crossed against their chests and heads rested on a rock, as if they were sleeping.  Word of the tragedy spread and folks later found Charlie Lawson had shot himself in the woods with that very same shotgun.

Speculation on why Lawson murdered his entire family ran the gamut, from shame due to incest to a head injury to other suspicions.  No matter the cause, the song has passed through the ages, and

Monday, November 12, 2012

Sins of the Perfectly Average -- I HATE NEW YORK


Ever run into a person from New York City?  Certainly you haven't run into anyone from New York City, but rather someone who, after leaving their farming village or mid-level, mundane existence in some random suburb across the United States who read a romance novel or pseudo-intellectual novel or watched a cinema film of questionable value and decided hey, New York City is the place to be!  Because Sinatra sang about it (dude, he sang about everywhere), then it must be A-OK!

So they pack their bags and run up there and maybe five years later, they infest some other city in a more civilized portion of America and say ridiculous things like "I'm still not used to the pace here after living in New York" or bemoan the dearth of Chinese joints open at four in the morning or lament the lines into the nightclubs are too short.  Or refer to Manhattan as THE CITY and expect everyone to know what they are talking about.

With the exception of the horrible events that took place against America on September 11, 2001 a.d., I love it when bad things happen to New Yorkers.  Frankenstorms, massive blackouts, the Yankees losing in the playoffs ... these things give me a perverted sense of glee and it honestly is not because of some geopolitical or socioeconomic or historic facet, but rather because of New Yorkers or former New Yorkers or even wannabe New Yorkers.  No, it is not the city that I hate, but rather the people. 

Some will jump to defend the arrogant populace, claiming that New York has such great theatre.  Really?  Those plays aren't reproduced across the country in smaller, more friendly confines?  How many of those playwrights are actually from the city?  I've seen better plays from writers in Dublin, Brazil, other places... No, you don't get that one. 

I actually like Saturday Night Live when it's good, but those players are trained in Chicago's Second City.

The crossword puzzle from The New York Times trumps all other crossword puzzles, but the great Will Shortz is from Indiana and is Indiana-proud, so they don't even get that.

You see, with the prolificacy of the Internet, we are no longer reliant on Hollywood or New York City for great works.  Film can easily be made, showcased, and distributed without selling out to the Great Western Casting Couch, sucking up to sycophants and braving earthquakes.  Theatre and literature can actually exist outside of the five boroughs, without having to deal with the nation's largest taxi queue.  Some folks are realizing this, but it is hardly a movement.  No, the only thing clinging our art so desperately to these two outmoded cities are the limited mindset of the Perfectly Average.

So hail the land of your birth, or re-birth, or a reasonable facsimile thereof.  To have an inferiority complex because you aren't exactly like thirty million other douchebags is just plain ridiculous.  There is no need to go packing your bags to run off to The City because of outmoded societal goals.  Thanks to brilliant writers like William Gay, Cormac McCarthy, Daniel Woodrell and yes, even Faulkner, the South is again beautiful and mysterious and crooked.  So why on earth would we need New York?

So with that, I hail a city that, in a steel cage match, would bludgeon the shit out of the City that Never Shuts Up.  If they can make it there, they can make it anywhere...

 

TOP TEN SONGS ABOUT DALLAS, TEXAS

 

Inspired by the stylings of Jimmie Rodgers, "the Blue Yodeler," Autry celebrates one of Big D's greatest institutions.  Known as "The Dallas Hotel" by locals, the imposing structure looms large just South of downtown in the psyche of everyone crossing the river for liquor.  It doesn't rate highly on its own Yelp page, but don't let that sway you from enjoying its amenities next time you are in town.  True to the nickname, it allegedly was once a working hotel, but contrary to urban myth, not the one where the Beatles stayed during their 1964 tour.  That was the Cabana Motor Hotel which, coincidentally enough, is now a minimum security jail.


There is no other song that sums up my experience growing up in Dallas or, more appropriately, South of Dallas.  If you've ever driven a Plymouth Turismo, perhaps you understand.  In the succession of shitty cars I drove as I crossed the landscape of Lancaster, Duncanville, Wilmer-Hutchins, Ennis and environs, Cedar Hill, and yes, even DeSoto, I spent many days with my car (or my friend's cars - think: shitty VW bug with a skull painted on the hood) on the side of the road.  This was before cell phones, when a person had to walk to the nearest payphone.  In Texas heat.  No, people are pussies now, plain and simple. 

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

The holiday season is upon us. 

Some very ill-informed may tell you: hold up, holiday season doesn't start until Thanksgiving!  Calm yourself!  But these horrible wet blankets would be leaving out festivities that predate all other upcoming celebrations by a millennia or two.  I'm talking about Halloween, and it's the reason for the season.

Granted, it's a bit less fluffy than Christmas.  For on the days surrounding October 31, anything coming down the chimney will more or less be met with a machete.  While it does not attract throngs of family and/or loved ones, it does deliver throngs of strangers in costume to your door, begging for candy. 

Gone are the feasts, gone are the bells of the Salvation Army, gone is the heavy-handed solemnity accompanying the holiday, replacing any fun with guilt... There are no haunted house hayrides at Christmas.  Thanksgiving gives you pie, but little to no chance of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.  I'll stab my eyes out with a butcher knife if I see It's A Wonderful Life one more time, but I've seen every Friday the 13th at least eight times.  Leaves are turning and that's magic.

But there is one aspect of the later holidays that reigns superior: the presents.  For those of us that

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

SYMPHONY FOR THE DEVIL: TOP TEN SONGS ABOUT SATAN

In order to prevent taking sides and to represent a "fair and balanced" point of view, it is only fair that we follow up any Top Ten Lists representing one group with a Top Ten List representing the other.  And, let's be honest, shouldn't this be a Top Twenty list?  While I whittle down the musical canon celebrating Lucifer, so many remain on the cutting room floor.

But these are songs.  We leave the deeds by the wayside.  We can revel in the glory of all that God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit allegedly created, but it good cannot exist without evil, then should we not compare with the works from the other side?

Is the devil not credited with creating rock and roll?  Blues music?

If God gave us the gift of making love, do we thank Satan for the blowjob?

Jesus turned water to wine, but I'm more impressed with who turned water to bourbon.

Desserts are described interchangeably as "heavenly" and sinful."  "Angel Food Cake" competes with "Devil's Food Cake" on dessert menus.  There are more plants in the forest named for the dark prince than the fellers upstairs. 

More actors jump at the chance to play Satan than do God.  Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino, and Elizabeth Hurley, among others, have all rocked it out as the devil, while only Morgan Freeman and George Burns really made any waves as the Creator.  (Should be noted that in Oh God, You Devil, Burns gets to play both parts...  just sayin')

So again, I am not taking any sides.  To pontificate on religion in this day and age is a good way to get your head cut off and I like mine right where it is.  My point, as always, is about the music.  And so in an effort to remain "fair and balanced," I present:

 

THE TOP TEN SONGS ABOUT SATAN


What kind of devil must Michael Hutchence possessed to go from pictures in girls' Trapper Keepers to autoerotic asphyxiation?  (AUTHOR'S NOTE: I still suspect Bob Geldoff.  Look into it.)

 


No, this is not a band led by the most annoying sportscaster in history, but rather the stage name of former Th' Legendary Shack Shakers guitarist and Hank III bassist, Jim Finkley.  Finkley has another distinction in what unfortunately gets termed "alt-country:" he and his ex-wife founded the downtown Nashville rockabilly hot-spot, Layla's.  While Joe Buck Yourself is no longer associated with the venue, there's still plenty of sinning to be found at the Broadway hotspot.

 

Monday, October 1, 2012

Praise This: Top Ten Songs About Jesus

Yes, he loves you.  This I know.  But churching and gospel singers and hymnals do not own the market on songs of the Christian leader.  In fact, many rock and rollers and blues musicians have found that Bible-thumping keeps pretty good time. 

So in order to keep my place in line, I offer this Holy Top Ten List.



Disillusionment came early in music as The Carter Family discovers that God doesn't have everything in heaven, as is commonly preached in the hills.  This sweet song from the First Family of Music documents the trials of a young child who longs to speak with their departed mother, only to find she's gone somewhere not even Verizon can reach you.



This song has it all.  Driving speed metal beat, lyrics belted by the son of Dallas' Mr. Peppermint, and spoken word offerings written by the greatest writer in the Southern Gothic pantheon.  The song, released in 1991, offers a point of view on Jesus' career previous to being a prophet. 

 

Saturday, August 11, 2012

PRODUCT PLACEMENT IN MUSIC, MUSIC IN ADVERTISING, AND SELLING OR GETTING SOLD


(yet another Top Ten List... brought to you by Anemic Royalty Pharmaceuticals, Ltd.)

Just recently, the latest Dell commercial began with the post-Brit invasion guitar licks and nasal whine of The Strange Boys, an awesome band from Austin Dallas, Texas and my first reaction was surprise.  Somebody at Dell has some goddamn taste!  My second reaction: happiness.  For someone had given the Sambol boys a check. 

This is a far cry from the reaction I had the first time I heard my favorite Beatles song used in a tennis shoe ad.  No, for these days, commercials, soundtracks, and ad campaigns are the new A&R.  Thanks to someone deep down in the pits of some marketing agency with excellent taste in music, we are able to find a Geico commercial more palatable, and in return, an indie band can get enough gas in their van to make it from Wilmington to Asheville.  (You didn't think they traveled the world solely by the sales at the merch table, did you?  The $5 cover at the door when only ten people showed up?)  While I don't have any feelings one way or the other regarding any of those companies, I do thank them for giving these bands exposure they otherwise would not get.

Not exactly the story back in the old days, with Rice Krispies, 7-Up, or Hoverround chairs for old-timers.

Soundtracks have the same effect.  What more is HBO's True Blood than a chance to watch sexy, naked vampires get it on while listening to kick-ass music?  As long as people can stand to keep watching Sons of Anarchy on FX, Scott H. Biram and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club will keep getting recognition and hopefully some royalties.

I know what you are thinking.  Or perhaps, I should say I know what some of you are thinking.  And with all full disclosure, I am basing this assertion I had with an unnamed, dirty hippie-chick from a local band.  She took the position that these bands were selling out and had somehow compromised their music by accepting money from these corporate entities.  That somehow the message of the band that drove thousands of miles and played shitty bars for more than 45 weeks of the year to drunks (or inebriated die-hard fans, as I like to refer to myself) has altered because they took what basically amounts to "free money," if ever there were such a thing.

This same girl who lives on government handouts, her daddy's money, and produces records that, deep down inside, she hopes no one buys because she is truly "punk rock," chastises anyone who makes money honestly...

How different is this from the position Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys takes took?  In his will, he states that he bars the use of any and all of his work from ever appearing in advertising.   Is this the same man who likes to "rock my Adidas / never rock Fila?"  Not to sound grim -- and I grew up loving the Beastie Boys, despite them being New Yorkers -- but what if a Beastie Boys song helped promote awareness of stomach cancer?

It's not like anyone's had to change their brand or message by accepting these checks.  It's not like they've stooped to some nefarious corporation and are succumbing to their bidding all in the name of collecting some greenbacks.  While some ads have bordered on lack of taste, I can only imagine how life would have been if someone canned and marketed poke greens for Polk Salad, if a practicing physician were actually named Dr. Feelgood, or if Chuck Berry worked for the Memphis Visitors and Convention Bureau.  I myself have wondered why hospitals don't fight to name their infirmaries after St. James or why Dole or Chiquita never approached Billie Holliday for the rights of "Strange Fruit."

Indeed.

Selling out is a term used by junior high kids and hipster bands that never want to have an impact.  So be it.  I enjoy the fact that these bands are able to come to my neighborhood and that I can enjoy them live on my modest budget.  If I were a millionaire, I'd have them play my birthday party.  But I'm not, so I'll settle driving out to High Point next weekend to catch Wayne "The Train" in a shitty bar or up to Martin's Downtown in Roanoke for whatever they may stir up. 

So I promised a Top Ten list, didn't I?  Enough preaching...
TOP TEN SONGS FOR COMMERCIALIZATION

Oh hell yes it does.  While the two country kids from Arkansas faded into obscurity after a couple of high profile years with Capitol records, they knew two things: Fame can be fleeting and Girls Talk.  It wasn't a copyrighted product that Bobby Adamson and Woody Murray shilled in their 1955 bopping number, but rather their selves and their own sexuality. 


 How much can we say about cars in American culture?  Cars have shaped our culture, transforming us from strictly urban dwellers, to how we eat, to what time of year our television shows air.  Cars have been the number one advertisers since they competed with gasoline (which goes into cars) for spots on early TV.  Every brand seems to have an iconic song.  Ford gets some love from Reverend Horton Heat, Jaguar from the Who and Chuck Berry, and everybody who's anybody has sung about a Cadillac.  One of the sexiest cars, the Galaxie 500, gets some love from Drowning Lovers and Reverend Horton Heat.  Sam McGee does some old time with the Chevy and the Beach Boys broke free from the deuce coupe to sing about a two-wheeled Honda.  So with all of those, why on earth did I choose "Bitchin' Camaro," you ask?  Coin flip.

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

THE WORLD COVERS LEAD BELLY

It could be argued that Huddie Ledbetter, also known to the world as Lead Belly, was one of the most influential musicians of all time.  While his songs, at the time of his death, were not number one sellers or tearing up the R&B charts, his prolific songwriting covered several different scopes, topics, and genres, which made it very easy for artists to cover his songs for decades to follow. 

Lead Belly learned music by traveling throughout Texas with Blind Lemon Jefferson.  He could play mandolin, harmonica, piano, accordion, and violin but was most associated with the twelve-string guitar.  He went to jail twice for murder and both times was rumored to have been paroled by playing music for the governor or the warden.  He achieved fame by riding with Alan and John Lomax and, in those travels, worked to preserve early black music for all of history.

Without Lead Belly's life, we would not have the versions of the following songs:

Note: While I am fully aware that Lead Belly did not author or originally record all of the following songs, often I have found that his recording is the most popular.  If at any point someone feels that I am neglecting the original songwriter or recording artist, please feel free to submit a correction. 
 

Not only is this one of the greatest songs for quitting your job, but this work song has seen so many different versions that it is sometimes hard to follow its descendants.  Many versions, like Big Bill's, manages to stay true to the original.  However others have recorded it as "Nine Pound Hammer," "Take it to the Captain," and even Johnny Cash's "Tell Him I'm Gone."

"COTTON FIELDS," covered by The Beach Boys

This song gets a surprising amount of attention from non-Southerners, which is something I would like someone to explore.  Creedence Clearwater Revival can be forgiven of course, since they ripped their entire act from Dixie.  However Harry Belafonte, The Beach Boys, and the Irish punk/folk group The Pogues had as much fun with it as did Elvis, The Carter Sisters and Webb Pierce. 

Sunday, July 15, 2012

TOP TEN SONGS FOR PUTTING THE "FUN" BACK INTO SEXUAL DYSFUNCTION


You know the old saying -- you've probably heard it before: "Don't worry... it happens to everyone."  At that point and time, you don't believe it.  You can't believe it.  Has everyone really been lying there in the dark with an unsatisfied woman/man and no ability to do anything about it?  Or what about having a woman/man who, on a scale of one to ten, is easily a twelve and she's rip-roaring and ready and you have to face a moral crisis about whether or not to tell her you currently are infested with creepy, crawly crabs?  What about that?  Does that happen to everyone?

I didn't write the Bible, but if I did, I would make that the new John 3:16.  For God so loved the world, that he equated good deeds with sexual heroics on command without use of pill, prayer or essence of rhino horn.  But that's not going to happen, is it?  No man who tinkered with the scribbling of Scripture ever bothered to make mention of one of the greatest sins of all time: sexual dysfunction.

So be not dismayed!  For although saints and apostles neglected to mention it, many very important songwriters did.  And next time you hear the words "It happens to everyone," rest assured that even if it didn't, Mick Jagger wrote a fucking song about it, which is good enough for me.  So pop a pill, say a prayer, and snort some rhino horn, but do it to some Rolling Stones or some Howlin' Wolf and get those "Rocks Off!"


It's hard enough out there, with all the pressures of performance to keep a good man erect during a... um, sermon.  What, with the stresses from work, the need to please, wondering if your butt looks good for the hidden camera... But add to all this a dirty yes ma'am and there is no quicker recipe for flaccidity.  But in the bedroom at the moment of conflagration is not the appropriate time to discuss such a topic.  Rather, as soon as you read this post -- hell, before you move on to #9 -- grab a little dab of vinegar and water and get in there and scrub out your yes ma'am.  Get it clean.  Because sometimes it's your fault.


So there is a pretty good chance that this one is a bit of a reach, but if you've ever dated a girl with recurring maladies, you end up giving her all kinds of nicknames.  Plus, how many times have you sat in the doctor's waiting room, itching away and singing "it burns, burns, burns..."  Now, in this context, please click on the link and listen to the song, lyric by lyric and tell me it's not applicable.  Puts June Carter Cash (rest her precious soul) in an entirely new light.

Thursday, June 21, 2012

RAPE OF THE YANG - In Response to Margaret Atwood's "Rape Fantasies"

It was during the Wednesday night poker game when they officially announced that the case against Kobe Bryant had been dropped. The girl wasn't going to testify. It wasn't like O.J. with the whole room erupting in either anger or jubilee. It was just a bunch of grumbles and half-raised brows. You didn't know which way to sway - you felt guilty about siding with a woman on this issue, but at the same time: you are a huge Dallas Mavericks fan. For the past year and a half, the entire city was only twelve jurors and a dominant center away from a championship.

But he got off. To me, the biggest issue at stake was a season's damnation of watching Bryant-to-Divac pick-and-rolls every night on SportsCenter. But to the men in that room, it meant something else entirely.

"I knew she was lying," says Tyson. Tyson hadn't won a hand all night, so his demeanor was shorter than it was as we were setting up the game. He usually gets this way about an hour into every game. He is what we call dead money.

"We don't know that she was," says Kennedy Smith. He's a lawyer, so his perception is often a bit more skewed. "Just because she dropped the case doesn't mean he's not guilty. I think you have to pay attention to the fact that the public servants that were in charge of prosecuting a rape case in a little town like Eagle, Colorado had to go up against the best defense that Kobe could buy.  That cased was doomed from the start.  The sad thing is that we may never know and this could have terrible repercussions for women in the future that are raped by athletes and too scared to come forward."

"It's your bet, Kennedy," says Tyson impatiently.  He's folded already and dying for the hand to finish so he can see if the next deal gives him the fingers to go all-in.

"She stood to make a lot of cash if she won," I say.  I had folded too and the hand, which had temporarily been disrupted by the breaking news, had already gone on too long.  "Imagine the money she would have taken from Kobe if she would have gone through with it and won."

A reverent moment passes among the men as they contemplate the money, some of them looking at their stacks of chips as if to put it into perspective.

"It makes you almost wish you were a woman," says Jackson Michaels.  "I'd get raped for a couple million dollars.  If I had to sit through bad sex for three minutes just knowing that at the end of it, I'd be a millionaire, I'd find a way to enjoy it."

"I'd let Lisa Leslie rape me for free," says Tyson.  "I would give her carte blanche in violating me however she wants."

"Men can't be raped," I say.  "It's impossible.  Physically, it's impossible."

"Like hell it is," says Kennedy, the lawyer.  "The same endorphins that activate a hard-on are produced when fear is induced.  That, compounded by the blatant insinuation of sex from a dominating woman in a position of complete control, would activate you expediently."

I'd known this guy for years.  Just because he went to law school gave him the right to be a pain in the ass while Jeopardy! was on or a crossword puzzle was in sight.

"So a man can be raped?" I ask.

"Sure," says Tyson.  "Haven't you ever seen Oz?  Or the Shawshank Redemption?" 

"I mean, by a woman?"

"Certainly," says Kennedy.  "It's entirely possible.  In fact, I fantasize about it all the time."

Thursday, May 10, 2012

HATE - The Eternal Muse


Art is mighty, art is powerful.  Many arguments have been called over the years about what most powers inspiration for art.  The Greeks found their inspiration in their Muses.  The Romantics sprang forth from nature.  As medicines developed in the latter twentieth century, drugs gave birth to entire movements.  However there is no older or more effective source of inspiration than one that bubbles up from within us and that is HATE.  It is entirely ours and entirely within us and therefore gives us power reserved for the most supreme: to create.
What more is satire than the freedom to hate?  Disgust with the behavior of others and the artistic display of such loathing.  When Machiavelli wrote The Prince, he would have laughed at his book's consideration as one of the leading manuals on ruling, influence, and power.  If you like to get your history from cable TV miniseries like I do, you would know that Cesare Borgia, the model for Machiavelli's masterpiece is a dick, and The Prince is essentially a how-to manual for douchebags.  Machiavelli wrote the book as a tribute to his superiors (the Medeci), but cloaked in satire, he damned them for being jerk-offs. 
Living in the modern age, we have no shortage of hate art, and one medium in which it is most predominant is music.  So in an attempt to tie this argument together and put a pretty little bow on it, I give to you, ladies and gentlemen:

THE TOP TEN LIST OF HATE MUSIC.

10. "Helping Hands" by Black Eyed Vermillion
With a voice like this and anger-fueled lyrics, this Austin band should be ranked higher.  Or lower, depending what team you're on.
9.  "Dial-A-Cliche / Margaret on the Guillotine" by Morrissey
No one seemed to inspire more through hate in the mid to late eighties than Margaret Thatcher.  From the Irish to the Argentines to the bloody feminists, the Iron Lady collected her fair share of enemies.  Unfortunately for her, many of them could sing.8.  "Head Like a Hole" by Nine Inch Nails
Pretty Hate Machine was the first CD I ever bought myself and it was and still is music mastery, with compelling angst-driven lyrics and hypnotic driving beats. However, I can't bring myself to buy another NIN CD.  Maybe it's my age.  But to Trent Reznor's credit, his work on the Natural Born Killers soundtrack helped shape my thoughts and beliefs on music.
7.  "Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle" by Nirvana
Why did Kurt Cobain choose a troubled actress from the 40s as the subject of his vitriol-laced song on In Utero?  Was it because they both were native children of Seattle?  Was it because of his ability to relate with her substance abuse?  Or his inability to cope with success?  Either way, he likens to the personality of Frances Farmer, probably more from his hatred of his community (which, more appropriately is Aberdeen, Washington), and this type of angst has also fueled the masses.  From the works of Mark Twain to every high school kid who's written shitty poetry.  Hatred of one's community is no joke, man.
6.  "You Rascal You" by Louis Armstrong / Milton Brown / Hanni El Khatib
I will make a separate post just on this song.  It seems to have been originally written to score a short animation film starring Betty Boop and sung by Louis Armstrong.  However, country swing musicians took it and adapted it as a standard, as evidenced by Milton Brown.  The sentiments carried over and musicians such as Hanni El Khatib and the Black Keys still perform it, nearly 80 years after it was written.
5.  "Fire On Babylon" by Sinead O'Connor
The Irish have been singing from hate since long before Easter 1916, and nobody does it better than Sinead.  Her brand of folk capitalized on her sudden fame to bring injustices by the British to light, but as her eccentricities colored her career, many people quit listening.  However, her defacing of the Pope's picture on Saturday Night Live is still rock hard.
4.  "Oxford Town" by Bob Dylan
In the tradition of the murder ballad or the disaster ballad in American folk history, Dylan tells the tale all too common in the America of the Sixties: racial disharmony.  There are so many songs to detail the hate that exists between cultures, and I'm sure there will be no shortage of them in the days to come.   
3.  "In The Air Tonight" by Phil Collins
Ah, the days before the Internet... back when a rumor circulated through people and became fact with very little to corroborate it.  Like blowing into Nintendo cartridges to get them to work, or having a friend of a friend who worked in a hospital and saw firsthand what may or may not have been pulled out of Richard Gere's ass.  Add to that list the guy who let Phil Collins' brother drown and, all those years later, gets a ticket to a sold out Genesis show and the lights find him in the audience while Phil Collins sings this song to him... Nope.  Sorry ladies and ginnulmins: it's about a divorce.  Which still counts as a hate song. 
2.  "How Do You Sleep" by John Lennon
Oh snap!  John Lennon started the movement of bashing people in song.  EVERY SINGLE LINE pops Paul McCartney in the mouth.  And why shouldn't it?  That capitalist bastard sold out the band and their agreement to dissolve in a joint press conference on April 11, 1970 by announcing his own departure one day earlier... and on the same day his first solo album released.  Way to sell out your mates, Paul.  Maybe the Strange Boys say it best, but I don't want to go there.  That's way too hateful.
1.  "Positively 4th Street" by Bob Dylan
Lots of people got mad at Dylan for abandoning folk for the electric guitar.  They wrote dirty things about him and protested and threw things... those peaceful folk musicians.  Even his women (Suze Ritolo, Edie Sedgewick) were pissing him off, cavorting about with sycophantic d-bags like Andy Warhol and other 15-minuters.  So to all the music critics and Greenwich Village hangers-on and snotty hipster folk musicians: you got a lot of nerve...

I know there are tons out there that I've missed and I want you to tell me about each and every one of them.  Just remember: keep your tone civil.  Jesus is watching... and following this blog. 

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

In Lieu of a Letter of Resignation -- Top Ten Songs for Quitting your Job

Remember "mix tapes?"  Remember the all the work put into breaking up back in the late eighties/early nineties, what with having to put all your lovesongs on a Memorex cassette tape and send it over via her best friend?  Nowadays, with text messaging and email, little care is spent on departures, which is sad.  All transitions should be commemorated with song. 
So please enjoy these ten songs celebrating one door closing, another opening...  And be grateful that
you won't need a pencil to wind back the tape.  Remember: it's not you, it's me.... Okay, maybe it's you.

Wilmer Watts and the Lonely Eagles were born of the Gastonia cotton mill culture in North Carolina, reaching the peak of their limited success in the late twenties before the stock market crashed.  Watts himself a former cotton worker knew all too well the troubles of working to death and found an outlet in music to entertain himself and other workers.  This song of his is a version of the murder ballad "Duncan and Brady" and was recorded in 1929 and available on the compilation Gastonia Gallop: Cotton Mill Songs and Hillbilly Blues.

Since Mr. Reeder's chain-gang lyrics really said everything he needed to say so simply, perhaps it's best if we don't use a lot of words either.

8.  "There Ain't No Use In Me Working This Hard" by The Carolina Tar Heels
The Carolina Tar Heels feature two heavyweights in Carolina music traditions.  Dock Walsh became known as "The Banjo King of the Carolinas."  Gwin Foster recorded first with the Tar Heels, then met David O. Fletcher and formed The Carolina Twins, a brilliant and haunting duo.  This song, recorded in 1927, became a staple in black music, with variants that included "Crawdad Song" and "Sugar Babe."

Todd Rundgren presents two options in this pop hit from 1983.  The song has since been used to poke fun at members of the Occupy movement to celebrating touchdowns by the Green Bay Packers at Lambeau Field. 

While the folk movement of the Sixties liberated many people, Bob Dylan wrote "Maggie's Farm" as a protest against the protest singers.  He described this song as a liberation against the expectations of the folk community, even going so far to play it with an electric guitar at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965, much to the ire of many music critics and fans. 

"Sixteen Tons" details the troubles of the American coal miner who lives "another day older and deeper in debt."  The company store mentioned in the song often was the culprit in mining communities as the miners were paid in scrip rather than cash, which essentially equaled a voucher that could only be spent in stores backed by the coal mining company.  This led to many laborers unable to spend their wages outside of the community or to save money. 

It should be pointed out that Steely Dan got its name from a steam-powered dildo in William S. Borrough's Naked Lunch and that their original drummer was SNL veteran Chevy Chase.  Just in case you didn't know.

If you love the Johnny Paycheck or David Allan Coe song, you will really love the film of the same name from 1981, starring Robert Hays, Barbara Hershey, and Art Carney.  The film was famous not only for its witty comedic screenplay, but for being robbed of its Oscar by Chariots of Fire.

First released on the awesome 1985 album The Queen is Dead, "Frankly" is said to be written about the studio head at The Smith's Rough Trade record label who wrote "bloody awful poetry."  However these lyrics can apply to any boss in any job in any industry. 

And then there's Lead Belly, the quintessential lyricist from long, long ago.  This song could be played in the cotton fields, on the chain gang, or in your office cubicle.  Every worker in America should keep a hammer at their job and, when the time comes, hand it over the Captain to "tell him I'm gone, tell him I'm gone."

What do you think... am I missing any??

Thursday, March 15, 2012

The Flood, The Levee, and the Blues

The end of the world has long been contemplated, with many stabbing wildly in the dark at what may bring about the end of times.  Most recently, global pandemics provided the scare.  Ask your parents and they'll tell you that the threat of nuclear war made them "duck and cover."  Runaway asteroids, zombie apocalypses, and global warming are other popular extinction theories, but one is older than all of them and has a further reaching audience and that is the Flood.

Every culture has their great Flood story.  Whether it be due to an angry deity seeking divine retribution, as in the Christian mythology, or creation missteps needing correction, as with the Maya, the Flood reigns supreme in anthropological studies.  The stories and art inspired by these deluges are even more captivating.  Children of both Judeo-Christian and Islamic faiths are indoctrinated with stories of Noah's Ark.  The Epic of Gilgamesh, one of the earliest known stories, deals with the Flood.  But it is the art sprung from a more recent calamity that provides the greatest cultural contribution to  the theme: The American blues.

After the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, flood songs were like the zombie and sparkly vampire movies of the 2000s: everybody was doing them.  One of the "Fathers of Blues Music," Charley Patton chronicled the tragedy with "High WaterEverywhere," one of the seminal works in the genre.  Son House ("Levee Camp Moan") worked and sang with Patton, then taught McKinley Morganfield how to play guitar.  Morganfield moved to Chicago, plugged in an amplifier and changed his name to Muddy Waters.  The rest is history.

WHEN THE LEVEE BREAKS took the act global.  Kansas Joe McCoy and Memphis Minnie recorded the song in 1929 to little fanfare.  However, the rise of Muddy Waters brought attention overseas to the American Blues and nowhere else was this more evident than in the British Invasion.  The Rolling Stones and Beatles' love for Chess recordings caused other sensational recording stars to mine old Delta musicians for inspiration and in 1970, Jimmy Page and RobertPlant set down to record.  What developed was a mind-blowing account of one of two greatest tragedies: 1) the displacement of thousands of people following a natural disaster and 2) the fact that it takes a Brit to cause a song about it to rise in the charts.

But BACKWATER BLUES cashed in much earlier than that.  Bessie Smith knew better than to let a good disaster go to waste.  In February of 1927, when the waters were still rising, she recorded the haunting and compelling hit in New York for Columbia Records.  The song is a first-person account of what many Delta sharecroppers experienced as they gathered what they could and headed for higher ground.   Singers from B.B. King, Dinah Washington and Meschiya Lake have  "stood up on some high old lonesome hill" and delivered the song to wider audiences and new generations.

Flood songs continued to be the rage even after the Delta waters receded.  Johnny Cash's FIVE FEET HIGH AND RISING followed the trend, chronicling his own dread following rising waters on his boyhood Arkansas farm.  Mattie Delaney recorded THE TALLAHATCHIE RIVER BLUES, which dealt with the same issue in a different part of the state years later.  Hurricane Katrina of 2005 has caused the canon of blues music to be revisited with new significance and a clear division in the music of New Orleans. 

Katrina presents a salient point to those seeking the end of times from a science fiction or horror movie.  While zombies are the rage right now, and pandemics are pretty damn sexy, the chances that the angry god may want to go "old school" are still high.  As poles melt and waters rise and sinners continue to thrive, who is say it isn't time to hit the reset button and begin anew?

Monday, February 27, 2012

The Johnny Folsom Show -- Johnny Cash's 80th Birthday with the Johnny Folsom 4

On the eve of Johnny Cash's 80th birthday, there are several appropriate ways to commemorate the event.  You could dress in black, program playlists on the iPod full of old country and gospel standards, or you could find where the Johnny Folsom 4 are playing.  Those familiar with the Cash tribute band would already know they're in for a treat, but these Raleigh talents aren't just offering up the old Cash covers tonight, not on this special occasion.  No, rather they are offering tribute to The Johnny Cash Show which ran on ABC from 1969-1971.  And there is no better venue for such a spectacle than Saxapahaw's Haw River Ballroom.
Nestled along the banks of the sleepy Haw, the Ballroom sits inside a former cotton mill that also houses The Eddy Pub, Saxapahaw General Store, and a police outpost.  The high ceilings, the three floor layout, the parts salvaged from the old mill (including an old drying vat with underlighting that casts a brilliant effect) all offer a vibe that rests somewhere between a Saturday night at the Ryman and a Sunday picnicking on the town square.  However, no other venue outside of a prison seems suitable for an evening with Johnny Cash.
And would any other act dare attempt to pull it off?  The old Johnny Cash Show featured not just the talents of the "Man in Black" and the Tennessee Three, but showcased guests ranging from Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, the Monkees, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Stevie Wonder, Clapton, Linda Ronstadt, a very young Neil Young... just to name a few.  Over the nearly two year run of the show, Cash had over forty guests appear to perform, making it a true spectacle not only of country talent, but also gospel, folk, rock and blues.  The audience never knew just who would drop in from one episode to the next.
 Quite an ambitious premise for 2012, right?  Not for the Johnny Folsom 4.  Band leader David Burney takes the mantle of the Man in Black, strumming wildly as his basso-baritone voice fills the giant venue.  The boom-chicka-boom comes from David Gresham on lead, Tom Mills slapping the bass fiddle, and Randy Benefield on drums.  Eleanor Jones steps out onto the stage, adopting the sassy June Carter persona and welcomes the audience before Burney whips around to face the masses and says, "Hello.  I'm Johnny Cash." 
The roar of the crowd nearly drowns out the opening chords of "Folsom Prison Blues."  Folks are dancing in no time.  By the time Burney's singing about that "man in Reno," it's obvious that they needed a venue big enough to hold the swagger and bravado of Cash's music and the Haw River Ballroom fits the bill.  Between songs, Burney addresses the crowd as friends, just as Cash would have and did.  We're treated to not only biographical information about Cash, but insight into how he performed, what he believed, what he liked.  "Five Feet High and Rising" tells us of his childhood fears of flood during hard times.  His love for gospel music is explained before launching into a moving spiritual.  For those of us unable to have seen Cash perform during his life, this is more than a treat.  It's a time machine.
And then there's the guests.  The Johnny Folsom 4 trucks out top Triangle talent, just as Cash did during the run of his show.  Cash always loved performing with contemporaries and Burney is no different.  Big Medicine's Joe Newberry joins the act, offering vocals and guitar for some Carter Family, an act that influenced Cash from childhood to death.  Steve Howell of the 90s country act Backsliders steps in and embodies Carl Perkins, replete with the flair, finger work, and fringed jacket of the rockabilly demigod.  Eleanor Jones's saucy twang elicits goose pimples as she joins Burney for such Cash and Carter classics as "Long Legged Guitar Pickin' Man" and "Jackson."  The amazing Kim Newton takes the microphone for a few songs that would have chased Linda Ronstadt out of the room. 
This biography offered via a small microcosm of Cash's life is fitting on his 80th.  We are treated to every facet of the performer: the prison singer, the outlaw, the man influenced by Pentecostal hymns, murder ballads... They do not ignore the cocksure, grand ole bravado balladeer years with "Man In Black" and "Busted."  We see the man who helped birth rockabilly at Sun Studios with "Hey Porter" and "Walk the Line."  We're offered a taste of the later years where his poignant reflections on death and age walked him to the door with "Hurt."  His old buddies Kris, Waylon, and Merle are there in spirit, if not in song.  Burney sings "I've Been Everywhere" and means it, just as Cash did, and whips the crowd into a frenzy as he deftly rattles off local North Carolina towns, including Saxapahaw, for which they explode.
 By the time everyone is invited out to perform "Were You There When They Crucified My Lord" and "Daddy Sang Bass," no one wants this night to end.  The applause is thunderous.  Burney and the band are just as gracious as Cash would have been and have no intention of sending us home empty-handed.  The lights dim and they take the stage again for the encore.  This time, tribute is paid to a man who influenced everyone including Cash: Lead Belly.  Their rendition of "Rock Island Line" is indicative of what Cash would pull out for one of his shows and their boom-chicka-boom goes faster and faster, just as the namesake's train, whipping the audience wild as the train picks up speed and trucks on, possibly never to stop. 
 But the train does "move it on a little further down the line."  The music does stop.  The lights come back up and the show ends, just as the crazy, raucous life of Johnny Cash did nearly nine years ago.  But lucky for us we have musicians like the Johnny Folsom 4 and venues like the Haw River Ballroom and nights like this night, here on what would have been his 80th birthday, to make sure that his music never stops for long, that it merely keeps a-rolling...