Tuesday, January 17, 2012: TWOfer Tuesday - The "London Calling Is The Greatest Rock Album Ever Made" Edition

Bands are curious things. If you've ever been in one you know this. There comes a time when you look around you, at your bandmates, your equipment, probably the empty club you are playing in and then suddenly, in one moment, you clearly understand that Talking Heads lyric:

"You may ask yourself, "Am I right, am I wrong?" Then you may say to yourself, "MY GOD, WHAT HAVE I DONE?"

So, there was a time in my life when I was playing bass in a couple of bands. Eventually, I too got to that point described above, so I decided to start reading musical biographies.  Any biography of musical figures I could get a hold of. I was really trying to get inspiration and insight about music, equipment, performing and any insider knowledge about the music business I could find. But mostly I curious about bands. How do they form, how do they function, why do they break up.

One of the most peculiar books I came across was "Last Gang in Town: The Story and Myth of the Clash" by Marcus Gray. Recently, he has written an updated version with a lot more info, however this was the one that was available in my local library at that time.

Now let me confess something, gentle reader. This might seem quite shocking coming from a purveyor of supposed "cool" music, but I've never really been that into The Clash. I mean, I "appreciate" them and all, and their impact on music and culture and whatnot. However in my life, I can count very few times when looking for music I've thought, "Man, I need to hear some Clash!". And probably one of the reasons for this is that I never really bought into these guys as musical cum political revolutionaries. It all smelled overcooked. So, when I picked up Mr Gray's book, I was glad to see that I was not alone, and was looking forward to reading an opinion antithetical from the usual hagiographies that one encounters about the Sacred Clash.

Which is exactly what I got. To a fault. This became one of the most relentlessly negative books I think I have ever read. I was certainly happy to have the Clash taken down a notch or two, but halfway through even I was saying, "Aw, c'mon, give 'em a break, will ya"?

See, the thing about it was this: you really came away knowing that The Clash had let the author down. This guy had bought into the hype and the myth so heavily, and somewhere, somehow, he finally saw The Clash for who they truly were - just some guys in a band making music. After all the albums and all the posters and all the t-shirts and all the political sermonizing about Revolución, these were just guys who played music together in a band. And, boy, did the author have an axe to grind about that.

What he should have done, instead of venting out his frustration on the page, was thrown away all the Clash posters, t-shirts and all the Clash albums...save one.

London Calling.

London Calling is the real deal. London Calling will not let you down. London Calling not only lives up to the hype, it squares right up to the hype, looks it straight into its eyes and then kicks the hype's scrawny ass all the way down the street.

Out of 500 selections for Greatest Album Ever, Rolling Stone has London Calling at #8. Rolling Stone are idiots. But, if you read this blog, you already know this.

You want punk? Ska-reggae? R&B? Rockabilly? Jazz? Ok, well, Jimmy Jazz is soft, pseudo-jazz, but it's a heck of a lot more than their peers were doing at the time.

You want hope? Fear? Joy? Agnst? Social commentary?  Just a couple of good time songs?  You say you want a revolución? This album delivers.

London Calling is the rarest of rare creatures - it is both of its time and timeless. Put on Sgt Pepper (RS's choice for #1 album ever) and you can hear a great album, no question, but there are cracks in the foundation there. That album is showing its age. Put on Train In Vain, or Rudy Can't Fail, or any number of tracks from LC, they they sound like they could have been written and recorded yesterday. Or tomorrow.

You can hear something new every time you listen through these tracks. You make some connection, you see some different level of meaning that you didn't catch before.

There are very, very few albums that hold up that well, for that many rotations, for that long of time. Yes, Sgt. Pepper. Bob Dylan's Blonde On Blonde. Maybe Pet Sounds by The Beach Boys.

But none of those have the visceral impact of London Calling. Those albums are cool. This album is heavy and cool.

London Calling is the best album of all time. But don't take my word for it.

Listen for yourself.

Monday, January 16, 2012: M83 - Midnight City

OK, just one more holdout from 2011.

No, I take that back. We will certainly pepper the upcoming months with more outstanding tracks from 2011 that didn't make the cut in last weeks Official-Yet-Still-Rubbish "Year In Review"

The review was rubbish. Not the songs.

So, here's another non-rubbish song released in July, 2012, by the band M83.

Well, when I say "band", I basically mean French musician Anthony Gonzalez.

It's a glorious piece of 1980's pop-electronic pick-me-up to counter those hazy gray Monday morning blahs. If that glorious sax at 3:02 hasn't put a smile on your face, then you are in for a bad week.  Fact.

Enjoy!

Sunday, January 15, 2012

No blogging on a Sunday.

See you Monday!

Saturday, January 14, 2012: Lana Del Ray - Video Games

Lana Del Ray was one of the biggest stories of 2011.

There is little I can say here that hasn't already been commented about.

What I can do, however, is just give everyone a replay of "Video Games", the song.

Not the internet meme, not the questionable plastic surgery, not the hipster-blogger-meltdowns.

Just this song.

Probably the stand out track of 2011.

I do hope she's not a fake. I do hope she has staying power, which has been sort of a theme running through this very selective year in review.   We'll see.

I do hope her boyfriend gets off his ass, pushes the pause button on that video game, and gives his woman some love.

I hope we all can do that in 2012.

Before the end does well and truly come.

Friday, January 13, 2012: Skrillex - Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites

2011 was certainly a banner year for Dance/Electronica/Rave/Whatever music.

For me living here in Las Vegas, the Electric Daisy Carnival was about the only good thing to happen to our town in many a month.

It was also a banner year for this cat.

No, not THAT cat.

This cat.

Thursday, January 12, 2012: The Roots - Make My (Ft. Big KRIT)

I don't have to tell you that 2011 was a bad year.


I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression. Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel's worth, banks are going bust, shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street and there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it. We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit watching our TV's while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that's the way it's supposed to be.

We know things are bad - worse than bad. They're crazy.

It's like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don't go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, 'Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won't say anything. Just leave us alone.'

Well, I'm not gonna leave you alone. I want you to get mad!

I don't want you to protest. I don't want you to riot - I don't want you to write to your congressman because I wouldn't know what to tell you to write. I don't know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street. All I know is that first you've got to get mad. You've got to say, 'I'm a HUMAN BEING, God damn it! My life has VALUE!'

So I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell, 'I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!' I want you to get up right now, sit up, go to your windows, open them and stick your head out and yell - 'I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!'

Things have got to change.

But first, you've gotta get mad!... You've got to say, 'I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!' Then we'll figure out what to do about the depression and the inflation and the oil crisis. But first get up out of your chairs, open the window, stick your head out, and yell, and say it: "I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!"

Wednesday, January 11, 2012: Battles - Ice Cream (ft. Matias Aguayo)

Battles is an American group who had one album in 2007, then their singer left, then they released their 2nd album Gloss Drop in June, 2011.

I'm sure there is a more interesting way to write that, but I don't want you to read, I want you to go straight to this track.

This song is a pop-techno-prog-experimental-electronic-retro-funky-dance-jam that puts a smile on my face every single time I hear it.

Here is one of the most outstanding tracks from 2011, I love every second of this.

Enjoy