Puddle of Muddle

Heavy metal thunder

Today I spent two hours watching The 40 Most Awesomely Bad Metal Songs Ever on VH-1. You know those shows, where they trot out old videos and wiseass  critics riff off them? Every so often I get sucked in and I am glued to the couch. The mindless repetition is reminiscent of watching an entire porno film. Afterwards I feel guilty about frittering away all that time.

I'm proud to report that I'd never heard any of these songs or seen the videos. Back in the late 80s and early 90s, metal was an ubiquitous radio staple. Bombastic, testosterone-soaked, long but perfectly coiffed hair, clenched fists, maddeningly loud, obnoxious, corporate-generated music. It just never interested me. I was vaguely aware of its existence, as you might be about a famine in Africa someplace.

In many ways it's the same way with the corporate-generated pop tarts and American Idols of today. Sure, I know they exist. I see Britney, Christina, Ashlee, Jessica and Kelly on TV and magazine covers. I know their images have been carefully crafted by their handlers. But as for their "music," I've never heard it and never will. They exist in a parallel universe from me, just as Poison, Warrant and the rest of the "hair bands" did way back when. I did catch Christina rolling around in the mud on Dirty. It struck me as anything but.

It is the antithesis of rock n roll. Chuck Berry was rock n roll. George Thorogood was once asked why he didn't write his own songs. "Because Chuck Berry already wrote them all," came his reply.

Rock n roll must have certain key elements to be credible: A driving beat, defiant attitude, dirty sexual innuendo and most of all, a sound your parents cannot tolerate. On the last count, I know that so-called "nu-metal" makes the cut. When my stepdaughters were still at home I almost hung myself to the hostile strains of Nine Inch Nails, KORN and the Insane Clown Posse. Thank God those days are over. 

I laughed as I said it, this is my situation

They were playing Stump the DJ on the radio. Listeners could win an iPod and $500. All you had to do was name a tune faster than the DJ. The catch was that they only played a one second snippet from the intro. It's easier than you might think. Playing along I was able to name Linda Ronstad's You're No Good, Feels Like the First Time by Foreigner, Feel Like Making Love by Bad Company, Dire Straits' Twisting by the Pool, Don Mclean's American Pie and Blue Oyster Cult's (Don't Fear) the Reaper. There was some bubblegum pop I didn't know but anything else I nailed.

It's funny how much useless information about movies and songs we have embedded within our neurons. But you do recognize the opening chords of songs for a reason. Next to the hook, the intro is the most important parts of the song. It's what draws you in and keeps you from hitting seek on your radio.

When I was in school a lot of guys formed bands. The main idea was to garner chicks and it worked like a charm. But musically they all fell into the same rut, covering famous bands' tunes instead of working on one catchy tune that might get them some airplay. This is a huge mistake.

I wrote some rockabilly lyrics for a local blues band. They went over pretty well. My stepdaughter had a band too. She was the lead singer and I was floored by her winning stage presence. They had some original tunes,  and even got a gig at the local showcase Jax. A tired-looking Molly Hatchet was playing on the same bill. Used-up bands have to go somewhere, I guess.

I offered up some of my songs for them to play at future gigs. Perhaps the most embarassing moment of my life was trying to sing the songs to her as my wife's ex tried to follow along on guitar. I am the world's worst singer. When I sing in the shower, the water goes back in the showerhead. Needless to say she turned me down flat.

So as a public service to any aspiring songwriters out there, I offer some unfinished lyrics to which you can help yourself. I have no use for them anymore.

I know what you're after, I know just why you came/ Ain't makin' no excuses or tryin' to shift the blame. Outside of my window I can hear the baying hounds/ I'd try and fly away but they'd only hunt me down. I'm a dead man walking/ And my time is drawing near. A dead man walking/ And I guess that's why you're here. You want me to believe that the Lord is on my side/ Let him be my shepherd, hey let him be my guide. But I was born alone/Buck naked to the world. And that's how I have remained/As each moment has unfurled.

It's the end of an era/the changing of the guard. Our ship isn't coming/though we've waited long and hard. And it's not like someone's waiting/to welcome us back home. So raise your glass and say goodbye/long may you roam. 

    

One man gathers what another man spills

The title comes from an old Grateful Dead number, St. Stephen. It was penned by Robert Hunter. He also wrote, "Believe it if you need it. If you don't just pass it on." Of their rivals Jefferson Airplace/Starship, he wrote, "Watched your first ship sink and drop from rocking of the boat." I think he is brilliant. So is John Barlow, who is now some kind of activist but back in the day was a rancher and the lyricist who wrote with the Dead's rhythm guitarist and resident pretty boy Bob Weir.

I have met Weir and had a long conversation with him. My date for the show had finagled her way backstage and later accompanied the band to the Watergate hotel. They'd booked several suites. Somehow my friends and I wound up there, tripping.

He was nothing like what you'd expect. First off, he was drinking whiskey. Secondly, he didn't come across like some San Francisco hippie. In fact, he mostly talked about money, security and marketing stuff. Evidently the Dead was one money-making machine despite their dearth of hit records.

He expressed some disdain for their rabidly loyal fans known either as Deadheads or Jerry's Kids. He knew that they erroneously felt as if kindred spirits with the band members, mostly based on their lyrics. None of which were actually written by him or Jerry Garcia or Phil Lesh. Basically they were like actors reading from scripts penned by Hunter or Barlow.

All the while I could hear my date moaning and shrieking in the adjacent room. I asked Weir if he planned to take a turn with her. And no was all he said.

As we were leaving (sans my date,) Weir asked me if I was a devoted Deadhead. And no was all I said. 

I'm your gutter slut

Increasingly lazy journalists at Rolling Stone have taken to compiling subjective lists. Best of this, worst of that. This month it is the 500 top rock songs. This is fallacious on a number of levels. How do you define rock? Does it encompass R&B or rap? What about crossover country acts? Isn't it meaningless after the top 20 or so?

With that said, here is mine:

20 November Rain, Guns n Roses

19 Omaha, Counting Crows

18 One Bourbon One Scotch and One Beer, George Thorogood version

17 Foo Fighters, At Times Like These

16 Long December, Counting Crows

15 Fuck and Run, Liz Phair

14 1999, Prince

13 R-E-S-P-E-C-T, Aretha Franklin

12 Torn and Frayed, Rolling Stones

11 Salt of the Earth, Rolling Stones

10 People Who Died, Jim Carroll Band

9 Mrs. Robinson, Lemonheads version

8 Imagine, John Lennon

7 Some Kind of Crazy Island, John Mellencamp

6 (Get a) Grip (On Yourself), the Stranglers

5 Street Hassle, Lou Reed

4 All the Way from Memphis, Mott the Hoople

3 Friend of the Devil, Grateful Dead

2 Won't Get Fooled Again, the Who

1 My Back Pages, Bob Dylan (as heard on the 1992 tribute album featuring solos by Neil Young and Eric Clapton and vocals by various Traveling Wilburies, including Dylan croaking from his deathbed.)

Give it a try below. It's fun. You'll keep crossing tunes off the list as I have done the last hour or so. And once I click save, something else will pop into my wine-addled head.

Why can't you just get it through your head, it's over it's over now

He's baaack. Yes, Eminem or Marshall Mathers or Shady Slim or whoever he is has a new CD out, Encore. Here he departs somewhat from his usual shopworn invective to moon about his kid, sing a love song or two and rail against Prez Bush: "Strap him with an AK-47/Let him go fight his own war/Let him impress Daddy that way." First off, it doesn't rhyme. Second, American soldiers carry M-16s. Our enemies carry the infamously unreliable AK-47s. If it was a question of syllables and cadence then he could have said "goddamn M-16."

He doesn't dis his mom or sing about drowning his wife Kim with a rock tied around her footsie. Maybe he's tired of the lawsuits. Maybe he's back together with one or both. Who knows?

Michael Jackson doesn't like the tape. He calls it "demeaning and disrespectful...to our community." What community is that? I am starting to warm up to this guy already.

With all that said, I should give due props to Eminem. While I can't stand rap music itself, and have been driven to the brink of insanity by rap attacks at stoplights, I gotta say this guy shows a knack for the spotlight. And some of his rhymes are pretty catchy. Also, he acquitted himself nicely in 8 Mile. Sorta like Donald Trump in The Apprentice, playing himself well. But who knew how little the twerp is?

At 29 he has mastered the splayed-finger and/or window-washing hand gestures. He's got the rhymes down pat. He has gotten past the novelty act thing of him being white. Besides, what is rap about but rich brothers posing as street thugs who pimp they hos and smoke week until you see their posh domestic lives on Cribs?

But here I'll go out on a limb and say that Eminem's volatile style of rap is the next closest thing we have to rock n roll today. Either him or self-professed redneck woman Gretchen Wilson. They've got the sexiness, the fuck-you defiance and the attitude. They don't have the self-loathing mopiness of so many male acts today. They don't have the faux-Pat Benatar feminist feistiness of so many female acts. They don't seem corporate-generated even though they no doubt are. My hat is off to Eminem and Gretchen Wilson. I'd even buy the latter's CD if I wouldn't feel like such a 45 year old poser doing so.

Man this is lonely.

Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way

In which I pander to an imaginary English audience with mixed results.

Those crazy British musicians crack me up. Note: The assertions in this post have not been fact-checked and could very well be figments of my addled imagination. That said, I believe retired Rolling Stones bass player Bill Wyman is married to a sweet young thing about a third his age. I think her mother is married to his son from a prior marriage. How awkward must that be? Do they ever swap?

George Harrison and Eric Clapton were fast friends. Clapton played lead on Harrison's While my Guitar Gently Weeps long before he joined Carlos Santana as a rent-a-guitar-legend. And yet Clapton's Layla was supposedly written about Harrison's wife.

David Bowie and Mick Jagger were buds too. Acording to Marianne Faithful, they were much more than that for a time. And yet Jagger supposedly wrote the plaintive ballad Angie about Bowie's first wife.

Speaking of Ms. Faithful, she claims to have slept with 3 of the 7 guys who've been Rolling Stones. That is a pretty amazing percentage for someone who wound up sitting on a dingy wall addicted to heroin for years. (She later emerged with a haunting album called Broken English. Check it out if you can find a copy.)

And lastly, Elton John was once married to a woman. They might even have kids. He is one of the most obviously gay people I've ever seen. How weird is that?

Sloppy seconds is better than no seconds

When you listen to today's music, one thing jumps out at you. There's a dearth of intricate solos, harmonies and chord progressions. These are the things that used to practically define bands. But no more. Oh sure, there are slick production values and that ubiquitous stylus-on-vinyl noise. But very little in the way of musical virtuosity. Basically you learn a few chords, play them over and over and get an attractive lead singer. It's also helpful if you can project a sullen attitude and rail against a vague plethora of things that irk you and cause you angst.

All of this can be traced back to one band: Velvet Underground. In the mid-60s, when everyone from the Beatles (Revolver, Sgt Peppers) to the Beach Boys (Smile, Pet Sounds) to even the Rolling Stones (Her Satanic Majesties' Request) were churning out lush harmonies, symphonic sounds and in general, complex, feel-good music. In the midst of all this VU dropped its minimalist renditions of such classics as Sweet Jane and Heroin. Their albums sounded as if recorded with a dictaphone in one take. They had a cello player but no bass. Leader Lou Reed could barely play guitar and sung like he was speaking. NY critics lapped them up. Sales amounted to nothing and the group quickly disbanded. Several years later Reed resurfaced with Rock n Roll Animal, a live project featuring longer versions of those VU nuggets. (I happen to know of at least one prominent website guy who loves this album.) He was flanked by a crack band comprised of sessions performers. It had long, soaring intros and everything. Critics panned it. It sold like hotcakes. Consumers like quality product, even if it's silly rock music they're buying.

Years later the Sex Pistols burst on the scene. They immediately announced their disdain for the artsy progressive rock so prevalent at the time. Bully for them, as the Brits say, but maybe someone should have taught them how to play and memorize lyrics before turning them loose onto stages across the world. Again, critics raved, wallets remained wedged in pockets and the band soon imploded. The Sex Pistols sucked. The Clash later took that same defiant, minimalist style and forged some quality tunes that sold. By then what had been punk had been relabeled new wave so as to avoid any guilt by association with the Pistols.

There are parallels in other genres. Consider The Blair Witch Project. It looked like a home video and had little in the way of plot development, stunts or production values. But oddly, in theaters, it did modestly well. Same goes for Jack Kerouac's sloppy memoir On the Road. Even the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe remains pretty popular in some circles, despite its nonsensical plot.

Every so often I hear a new song on the radio that actually features a guitarist or pianist showing off some licks. But they always cut it short and return to the formulaic verses and choruses that pay the rent. It is almost like they are self-conscious about being talented. Why one could only guess. Maybe that is what is meant by the nebulous term "postmodern."

I been to Alabama people, ain't a whole lot to see

Okay, the networks have now declared the campaign over. So maybe now we can get back to examining some lyrics as promised. But first a caveat: I hate songs where you have to look up the lyrics on the net. Some records are mixed in a way that they cannot be discerned. That is bad.

In no particular order, here are some of my faves:

I met a German girl in England who was going to school in France and we danced the Mississippi at a Alpha Kappa dance. It wasn't me. -Chuck Berry, It Wasn't Me. I wasn't around during the 50s but I have to think this was a sly anti-racism statement.

Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free. -Bob Dylan, Mr. Tambourine Man. This seemed to catch the giddy mid-60s mood before everything went wrong.

You look like a star but you're really out on parole. -Mott the Hoople, All the Way from Memphis. Again, it just captured the decadent but not idealistic mood of the early 70s.

Now for you and me it may not be that hard to reach our dreams, but that magic feeling never seems to last. And while the future's there for anyone to change, still you know it seems, it would be easier somehow to change the past. -Jackson Browne, Fountain of Sorrow. What else can you say?

I came in from the wilderness, a creature void of form. Come in, she said, I'll give you shelter from the storm. -Bob Dylan, Shelter From the Storm. Same reason.

Now I got a job but it don't pay. I need new clothes. I need somewhere to stay. -The Clash. Somehow these big rock stars sounded convincing with this working-class lament.

So take the photographs and still frames in your mind. Hang it on a shelf in good health and good time. Tattoos of dead memories and dead skin on trial. For what it's worth it was worth all the while. It's something unpredictable but in the end it's right. I hope you had the time of your life. -Green Day, Good Riddance (Time of Your Life).

That's pretty much what I've been trying to express all along. Surely anyone who happens across this blog has a lyric that meant something to them.

That's okay let's see how you do it

This site is supposed to about "rock music," whatever that means today. Rock music does not encompass the corporate-generated, Matrix-penned pap perpetrated by the likes of Christina Auguilera, Britney Spears, Avril Lavigne and most recently, Ashlee Simpson. So I shouldn't be talking about the flap over the latter's lip-sync gaffe on SNL. But I will anyway.

Might I ask what is the problem with so-called "backing tracks," "guide vocals," pitch correction devices and harmonizers that make it possible to hear 100 Britneys in a "live show?" First of all, with all the emphasis on dance moves and sexual gyrations among this set, how could you expect them to hold a tune without some electronic assistance? Secondly, what do you care? Would you begrudge your mechanic the use of hydraulic tools. Would you prefer your carpenter use only hand saws and not circular and jigsaws? If so you must be willing to accept inferior quality music. And at today's prices, why would you do that?

I do wonder why these pop tarts have bands. The few times I've actually heard their product, it all sounds like drum machines, synthesizers and the like. There's no discernible bass line or lead/rhythm guitar. Fortunately, thanks to pre-set buttons on the radio, it is possible to go your entire life without ever subjecting yourself to this inane, calculated crap. (Though I must say the video for Spears' Toxic is pretty provocative. But where do you go to see videos anymore?)

Oh I can hear you fuddy-duddy rock purists muttering about how things were back in the day. Except they weren't. I saw the legendary Who not long after the release of their seminal work Who's Next. The concert included Baba O'Reilly and Don't Get Fooled Again. Pete Townsend plays both the guitar and the Moog synthesizer on the album. There were only four of them on stage, one drumming, one playing bass, one singing and Townsend on guitar. Who played the synthesizer part? Did anyone in the audience care? No, because as a live act the Who are second on to Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. (Though by that time they'd long since dispensed with smashing up their instruments and amps.)

Another great live act of yore was the Allman Brothers Band. Legendary slide guitarist Duane Allman (hear his work on Layla) got hit by a peach truck just prior to the release of Eat a Peach. He died instantly. Yet when they played songs from the album in concert, his parts were still there. The only guitarist onstage was Dickie Betts, playing lead. You can't play both those parts at once. Hence, it had to be recorded. Again, nobody seemed to mind.

My only beef with Ashlee (besides the stupid spelling of her name) is that she isn't even cute. I always thought that was a prerequisite for being a pop tart. That rat's nest hairstyle might be a place to start for her.

I have accountants who pay for it all

Rock star excess is the stuff of legend. It's also the death or near death of many. Morrison, Hendrix, Joplin, Brian Jones, Keith Moon, John Entwistle, Gram Parsons, Elvis, Lowell George, David Crosby, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Jane's Addiction, the list goes on and on. But these travails stem not from cheapness but a lust for life. And they hardly ever get busted while still alive.

Whereas pro athletes and actors seem to get nabbed for drunk driving or possession of drugs in their cars with alarming regularity. Here locally cops pulled star forward Chris Weber over and found joints. Soon thereafter he was sent packing. More recently the Redskins' top draft pick Sean Taylor got arrested at 2:40 AM, drunk. They spotted him speeding in his 04 BMW and the rest is history. This is a very bad place for this to occur, unlike New York. Where Rip Torn recently walked though there was a tape of him slurring hiw words, staggering and being belligerent. It's like murder in California, where juries seem incapable of returning guilty verdicts. First O-Jay, then Scott Peterson and then Robert Blake and Phil Spector. Well maybe not Spector. His story about a B-movie starlet stopping by his estate in the middle of the night only to blow her own brains out defies common sense.

So what did I mean with that cheapness cheap shot? In my opinion there is no other excuse for a rich celeb to get pulled over for drunk driving or drugs. Taylor just pocketed a $7 m signing bonus plus his seven figure annual salary. What is this guy doing behind the wheel of his own car at 2:40 AM? He was en route from a club in Georgetown to Ashburn, a $200 round trip cab fare, tops. For that matter why doesn't he have a limo on call for these occasions? What are these misers thinking?

And while rock stars have been known to behave disgracefully toward groupies, basically giving them the Monica treatment (swallow it all and get out bitch) they are not generally sadistic. This is in sharp contrast to car inspectors, who must be the cruelest people this side of dentists. I had to deal with them today. I wait an hour and then pull up. I tell the guy I need state and emission inspections. "NO CAN DO," he hollers in a thick Asian accent. Why not? "EXHAUST REAK ," he yells with his hands cupped around his mouth like an ugly American abroad. Oh. Can he do the state one? "YES BUT I WILL REJECT IT!" Afterwards he gleefully explains that I need not only a new exhaust pipe but front brakes (PROBABLY ROTORS TOO!!) and a headlight bulb. "GOING TO BE VERY EXPENSIVE FOR...YOU," he adds with a smirk.

How I wish I were a rock star. I'd have people to take care of this shit.