Dedication: To My Dad (and all other dads who love Led Zeppelin)

My dad, very famously, hung onto his bell-bottom pants well into the Eighties. He once explained to me that he realized the whole bell-bottoms movement illustrated to him that Fashion was fickle, and the rules change on an unfair dime, so wear what you want whether it's trendy or not ("There was an Alice Cooper album that came out around that time called 'Flush the Fashion'... I took it to heart." -Dad). When bell-bottoms returned to the mode, he triumphantly held it over my mom ("See? Everything cycles back." -Dad) who had made him get rid of them, at some point ("Yeah, but never exactly the same way." -Mom).

Well, like father like daughter. I still internally mourn the return of skinny jeans because I love living in "flares". I got my first pair when I was twelve, I think, and fact: I still own a pair, purchased new in the last 9 months. I was a little more sensitive about my clothes when I was a middle-schooler, before I realized I could always just Flush the Fashion. A boy in my seventh grade once said to me, "Hey, Brooke! The Seventies called. They want their clothes back."

I took this arrow to the heart and laid bare my hurt (and confusion) to my father that night, who said "Well, you just tell him, 'Hey Trey, Led Zeppelin called. They said they like my clothes.'" 

Since we all know comebacks are a dish best served cold (right? oh, wait), I did tell that to Trey, the next day. He made a surprised face and said, "Your dad likes Led Zeppelin?" (In retrospect, since I was a bespectacled twelve-year-old grammar nazi with tucked-in t-shirts, he probably figured my dad was essentially pre-time-travel-encounter George McFly .)

I know it might seem that way, but I've inherited a lot more from my father than my passion for music. I look just like him, for starters. I have my dad's face, transposed onto a girl's body, with a reasonable filter of Mom. We've got the same green eyes and skinny, tan-resistant legs (by the way, thanks again to Trey for the comment "Day-um, girl, you got some white legs," which signified the end of my wearing shorts for the next seven years). We both are good listeners. We both have weird senses of humor. Neither of us have much use for the insincere. We both have warm hearts and we both love the Gospel. We both have testimonies of the good that comes from sharing it, he from his mission, me from my missionary experiences. I hope when I grow up I also develop his patience, his determination, his aptitude toward forgiveness, and his love for his children.

He doesn't always say the right thing, but when it matters most, I can always count on him for sage advice. He's a wise man, longstanding affection for bell bottoms notwithstanding. I thank my mom for taking a chance on the bachelor whose silverware was rusted together from disuse, who bought dog food weekly from a convenience store, and who unceremoniously dumped crumbled Doritos on top of the first meal she ever cooked for him. And I thank my dad for being the guy he is, because it definitely helped to make me the girl I am.

Yes, my dad likes Led Zeppelin. In fact, I think all dads like Led Zeppelin, and definitely, all dads who like Led Zeppelin should make it part of their child's education and upbringing. The future will probably be a little more secure if the upcoming generations know the virtues of Led Zeppelin. And friends, I am here to report it is capable hands.

As evidence, I submit Rigby, heretofore known as "The Boy" on the Internet. Named by his bodaciously cool parents, Adam and Lydia, after a Beatles song, Rigby charmed me into oblivion one of the first times I met him. We had a conversation a few months later that went something like this:

Me: (fiddling with the music) How about this band?
Rigby: (listens for a moment; lights up) Yeah! Led Zeppelin!

Me: Led Zeppelin? Why are they your favorite?
Rigby: (grinning) Because of "Black Dog".
Me: "Black Dog"? Is that your favorite Led Zeppelin song? Will ya sing it with me later?
Rigby: (nods, plays with Gameboy Color)
Me: When do you like to listen to Led Zeppelin?
Rigby: When I'm with my dad in the car.
Me: Do you sing real loud with it in the car?
Rigby: (flops his head in an emphatic nod, smiling) Yeeeeaaah.
Me: Any other songs you like?
Rigby: "Rock 'n Roll". (EDIT: He is also known to cite, among others, "The Rain Song" and... "Going to California" if I'm not mistaken?)
Me: What would you say to a friend who said he didn't like Led Zeppelin?
Rigby: (stumped, avoids the question by further playing with Gameboy Color)
Me: You probably wouldn't have a friend like that, huh. We don't associate with those kinds of people.

Then we put on "Black Dog" and had ourselves a good old time. Watch an earlier "Black Dog" jam sesh here.

Yes, thank heaven, stairway included, for Led Zeppelin. And bell bottoms. And especially, for good dads.

Since Spotify does not have Led Zeppelin (boo!), I have put together a makeshift (very makeshift) list, similar to the one for Mother's Day, that further represents me and my papa bear. You will find it here: Dad

For Your Playlist: Side A
1. "Be Free" by Loggins & Messina
2. "Far Cry" by Rush (live 2008 version)
3. "The Pretender" by Jackson Browne
4. "John, I'm Only Dancing" by David Bowie
5. "Rich Girl" by Hall & Oates
6. "Cosmik Debris" by Frank Zappa
7. "Mistral Wind" by Heart

For Your Playlist: Side B
1. "Harvest Moon" by Neil Young
2. "Pancho and Lefty" by Merle Haggard
3. "Victim of Changes" by Judas Priest
4. "Enter Sandman" by Metallica
5. "Shape of My Heart" by Sting
6. "Dogs" (live version) by Roger Waters

"I have no time for your cynic's mind": Mumford & Sons (Concert Post)

So, how was Mumford and Sons round two?

Everybody who's known me longer than a year or two (or knows me really well) knows I saw Mumford and Sons in 2011 when they last came to Arizona, for their Railroad Revival Tour. It was one of the best concert experiences I have ever had, although about 90% of the rest of the attendees would disagree. I got lucky and wriggled to the front long before the Gentlemen of the Road took the stage- I'm not one of those jerks who lunge through the crowd at the last minute, drunk and/or toting a girlfriend who whined about not being able to see. (Obviously I wouldn't be toting a girlfriend in any condition, but you know the front-row usurpers I mean.) Short people  single girls have it easy at general admission shows. Look up (way up) from under your lashes at just the right tall wifebeater-clad bro guys and you practically part the red sea, because you take up so little space that nobody minds if you stand in front of them, and they like to feel gallant. Mumford & Sons held their last Arizona show in a parking lot between some apartment complexes and the railroad tracks- and they probably oversold it just a little. I hear the people in the latter half couldn't see a darned thing.

But I was there, all by myself, and by the time the first two acts- the fabulous Old Crow Medicine Show and the breathtaking Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros- finished, I was about three or four "rows" back. Alex from ESMZ even hopped over the fence to fraternize with us and I gave him something like a slow motion rapturous high-five. (Side note, I still don't listen to Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros very much but they blew my mind with their live show.) We'd been standing for at least three hours by the time Mumford & Sons took the stage but the moment they did, a kind of euphoria swept the crowd. 

They were a much younger band, then. I know it was only two years, but it makes a big difference in band years. Musically speaking, they were not so good as they were on Wednesday, I think. Not that they were bad, mind. Not even close to bad. But I was still in shock of the Edward Sharpe business and the thought crossed my mind that they were good in concert, but not maybe great. But the spirit of the audience rose and rose, and we sang along, every word we knew. In fact, so many voices joined in the singing that more than once the audience drowned out the band. Yes. Just like how it happened according to Beatles lore, with screaming overpowering the amplifiers, only this audience was singing. 

A girl a few paces from me actually cried. I watched her passionately beat her fists in the air and bawl out the lyrics to "Winter Winds" as tears fell from her eyes. I've never seen that before.

Nor have I ever seen, before or since (although this is very circumstantial), how a crowd of people actually formed on the rooftops of the aforementioned apartments throughout the night. It gave one a feeling of being completely and utterly surrounded by music lovers, and that can really go a long way to connecting you to the music. 

The boys debuted "Lover's Eyes" that night, which would appear on Babel and it was so wonderful I paused to make a note of the lyrics. "Lord, forget all of my sins/Or let me die where I lie/Beneath the curse of my lover's eyes." Quintessential Mumford. Ok, so they never deviate from their favorite rhyme scheme. Ok, so sometimes they wax a little cheesy. But the lyrics (and the banjo/mandolin usage, and the fact that Marcus plays the drums and sings at the same time) are my favorite part of the Mumford and Sons act. I love, and always have loved, the way they capture what you might call big little moments. 

I've read criticism of Babel that complained that it was still playing the same everyman archtype- an average man's interactions with God and love, more melodramatic than momentous- that Sigh No More did. I think that if you've ever felt how big small moments can be, you know how much they resonate. Some people do not understand how strong such a frail thing as faith can feel, when you exercise it. That is what M&S's more spiritual songs make me think of: that moment when you discover, or rediscover, the power of small and simple truths. I can't even tell you how it felt, in my personal experience, to have left a bishop's office with a temple recommend in my hand after several years without. But the boys captured it to a degree when they wrote "The Cave". To most people, it was a little moment. To me, it was huge, swelling: "'Cos I need freedom now/and I need to know how/to live my life as it's meant to be." Mumford & Sons is, to me, the soundtrack to both struggles and, more importantly, second chances.

Anyway, the best part of the entire evening in April 2011, the night before my epistemology final, was the very end, when everyone on the train- all three bands, families, crew, everyone- got onstage together to sing a couple of songs, including "This Train Is Bound for Glory" by Woody Guthrie. The song lasted about eight minutes and it blew my mind. It was so genuine. Even the children up there with their parents were singing and wriggling with camaraderie. This, I remember thinking, was how music should always feel. Like being together joyfully with your loved ones. Oh, and the bearded, strumming ghosts of the folk singers who came before you. 

There was no such grand finale to the show on Wednesday. But that was ok- after a dynamite closing number ("Dust Bowl Dance") the encore was 2/3 acoustic (an intimate cover of "I'm on Fire" by Springsteen, & "Reminder", plus a full-throttle rendition of "The Cave"). I wasn't in the front- I was in the back, on the lawn, where the dust and grass and marijuana smoke were tickling my allergies. But that was ok too- I was with my irrepressible husband, and my friend Caitlin and her sister Tory. The unified crowd did not overpower the band this time. But that was ok too- it let their musicianship really show through, and I was proud that they, like me, had grown into themselves since the first time we met. I still thrilled and my heart felt full to bursting. What more could you ask from a band, or from a show, than to be sorry when it's over? 

In answer to your question, the second time was still really awesome. But I'm glad I've seen them twice.

If you've never heard Mumford & Sons (where have you been?) here's my favorite picks, even though they only have 2 albums and an EP or two's worth of material available. No Time For Cynics is the name of the Spotify playlist, and these are the tracks:

For Your Playlist: Side A

1. "I Will Wait" from Babel (I was disappointed with it as a single but it grew on me in a big way)

2. "The Cave" from Sigh No More

3. "Roll Away Your Stone" from Sigh No More

4. "Below My Feet" from Babel (My favorite)

5. "Dust Bowl Dance" from Sigh No More 

For Your Playlist: Side B

1. "Awake, My Soul" from Sigh No More 

2. "Lover's Eyes" from Babel

3. "Not With Haste" from Babel

4. "Devil's Spoke/Sneh Ko Marg" from the Dharohar Project EP with Laura Marling, & Dharohar Project

I actually wanted to make it "To Darkness" which is the early version of what became "Broken Crown" on Babel but Spotify's copy is missing the last half of the song... :(

Bonus tracks:

5. "Janglin'" by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros

6. "James River Blues" by the Old Crow Medicine Show

7. "I Will Wait" cover by Gavin Mikhail

Covers are a good way to tell if you like the song itself- more on that in another post. I thought this was a beautiful cover of a beautiful song.

My prince & me, 6 months 

"Now you can have butterfly shoes AND go to Mumford & Sons."

"Who needs to be cool? Life's amazing.": Ozzy Osbourne

After having finally gotten my fill of the new Bowie album, I transitioned into a Rush CD, then to the Killers, then to The Paper Route, and then, out of nowhere, I popped in Ozzy Osbourne's 2010 effort, Scream. Because, after all, it is now the Merry Metal Month of May.

I say "effort" with a little smugness. Most of it comes from having seen Ozzy on the tour for this album and being actually disappointed- the first time that's ever happened to me. Anybody who's talked with me about live acts knows how dissatisfied that show left me. He spent more time trying to rile up the audience than trying to entertain us, and this I could tell from even my nosebleed seat. He was audibly off-target too. I mean, I noticed. I know enough about art to understand that sometimes it's not until the last five minutes that everything comes together. I am patient enough to wait and see, try to connect and get into it, if I don't jive with the project right away. Not this time. "War Pigs" turned out pretty good, and "Shot in the Dark", I think it was, was not dismal. "Bark at the Moon" wallowed at the other end of the spectrum, where most of the rest of the show hung out.

Guys. He led his own encore chant from backstage. Seriously. Empty stage, mumble of crowd, and then his voice on the microphone: "Come on, everybody: Oz-ZY, oz-ZY..." And he wouldn't come back out til everyone was playing along.

To be fair, the band was tight. Slash was promoting a solo album at the time and he was awesome as an opener.

I felt bad about it. I wanted that show to be good. I sent all the positive vibes I could, which usually works when I'm not sure I'm tuning in to the musician's station just right. Not even the power of positive thinking could change that show into a great, or even a good, show for me.

So, I'm sorry, Ozzy. I once waited about six hours in line to get your signature in your autobiography. I was about your three thousandth signature that day, I think, and someone told you "This is the last book," and you looked up with a glimmer of hope on your face. Then you realized there were two hundred more people behind me, with vouchers to be signed because the physical copies of the books were sold out, the last one to me. And you said nothing. You looked down and kept on signing. I felt bad for you then, too, but in a different way. A full day of book-signing is no place for a mighty rock star. After all, I like you. I even slipped "Mama, I'm Coming Home" on a mix CD I made for my mom when I left for college, even though she'd banned you from the house. I taped a radio interview you did for Nights with Alice Cooper, once:

ALICE: So, you're not really the Antichrist, then.
OZZY: Me? I thought you were.
ALICE: Well, I figured it was either you or Bono.
OZZY: [laughs]
ALICE: If Bono becomes President of the World Bank, he's definitely the Antichrist.

Don't tell me there's no love here.

When I was in high school, one of my best friends really dug Ozzy & Black Sabbath. Ozzy was his Bowie. (Which also makes me feel sort of smug, since Bowie is Ozzy's Bowie, along with John Lennon, I am told.) This is the same music-loving friend who gave me Pink Floyd, and Johnny Cash, and Jim Croce, and Cream. It was back when we first met, at that same table in the back of Spanish class. Mid-semester, probably. We'd finished our stuff for the day and were goofing off as was our wont (he more conspicuously than prim freshman Sandra-Dee me), talking about music. He asked me if I liked metal. I told him (primly) that I hadn't much experience with it. He asked me if I liked Ozzy. I said again, I hadn't had much contact but I knew his reputation from the TV show.

With the air of a doctor prescribing something to a particularly sensitive patient, he pulled out his discman (this was before iPods, but he was one of the first to get one, BTW) and handed me his headphones. And he put on "Dreamer".

O my little brother, you never could quite get the hang of me, could you? I never did make it easy and I certainly never made it fair, but I told you I liked Judas Priest! You thought "Dreamer" was all I could handle? We're not friends anymore by any long shot or definition, but there are times when I rerun those memories in my mind like episodes of Firefly. There is such a dense concentration of change and growth and self-realization in those memories and others like them that it is hard to look upon them, even the painful ones, without appreciation and fondness. Wherever you are, I wish you well.

So, this week I'm revisiting Scream, burned for me by a former boss with whom music was the only thing I had in common. (Amazing what music can do for people who otherwise maybe wouldn't be very friendly.)

There are some really fun things about this album and there are some really forgettable things. I can listen to the first four tracks ad nauseam and totally leave the rest. You, however, don't have to leave the rest. You can just have the good stuff, and here it is, with the tragic Spotify exclusion of a cover of the BeeGee's "Stayin' Alive" featuring Dweezil Zappa (sold separately here.): Life's Amazing: Ozzy Osbourne

For Your Playlist: Side A
1. "Desire" from No More Tears
2. "Let It Die" from Scream
3. "All the Young Dudes" from Under Cover
4. "See You on the Other Side" from Ozzmosis
5. "Rock & Roll Rebel" from Bark at the Moon

For Your Playlist: Side B
6. "Centre of Eternity" from Bark at the Moon
7. "Fire in the Sky" from No Rest for the Wicked
8. "Breakin' All the Rules" from No Rest for the Wicked
9. "Dreamer" from Prince of Darkness

No, I never really did take to Black Sabbath, although I love their name.

Getting Lucky

Facebook already knows this, but last week my Prince Genuine, AKA Bryson, set his mind to it and got us tickets to the Mumford & Sons gig in June. That is to say, he called a radio station 26 times to become Caller Number 8 and thereby score a couple of tickets. What a stud! He told the DJ, "My wife will be so happy!"

I am so happy. We had just been talking the night before about how, as much as we would like to go, neither of us were comfortable spending so much on one evening's entertainment. I told him wistfully that I would rather have Mumford & Sons tickets than butterfly shoes. But I understood if it couldn't happen.

Well, he wasn't about to give up without a fight. We got lucky this time.

More than lucky, I feel blessed to have a man who takes time out of his day (especially these busy days with precious little time) to make me happy. Blessed to be married to a man to whom I am not just "enough", but "everything".

On the one hand, I went through a ton of frogs (and toads, and newts, for that matter) before I found my Prince Genuine. You might say that he is a reward for persevering. On the other, if you know me in person, you may know that I seemed to deliberately seek frogs and toads and newts, so any misery I experienced as a result was self-inflicted. Then you might say he's a reward for breaking the routine of looking for a mate in the swamp. Either way, he is a reward, and reward means BLESSING.

I hope I never forget, even for a day, or for a moment, that he is a great blessing to me, warts and all. :)

He hasn't been to that many concerts. Mumford & Sons will be our second together. I am pretty stoked about that. I hope it's as great a show as the one in 2011.

His birthday is coming up at the end of the month. What do you get the man who called from the parking garage at work to say "I won us the tickets to Mumford & Sons; I guess you get your butterfly shoes after all"?

If you are looking for a new original playlist tonight, you should go to my blog-friend Jen's page, where I am guest-posting (thanks for the opportunity!!) this evening while she is on "maternity leave." (Personally I suspect the baby is waiting to be born so I can finish the toy I am making for her- she's a few days overdue.) Or you can skip to the nursery-themed list Babycakes.

If, however, you want to hear the happiest thoughts I had in 2009, I have drafted a slightly-revised (track 1 & 7) version of an enduring mix I made on this day that year. It was a really hard year in many ways, but Stir-Fry and Cult Films (April 2009) was one of the easy days: laboring over a clumsy stir-fry supper, talking about music and midnight movies (most especially Harold & Maude) with a new friend. I still listen to this mix. it's one of the rare occasions when I think I got just the right balance and just the right mood, with only the positive memories framed in it. Enjoy!





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"Hallelujah, lock and load!": My Chemical Romance

"Bad news from the Zone, tumbleweeds."

News broke last week, I think it was, about the disbanding of My Chemical Romance. I did not cry, and it did not ruin my day, but it did give me a kind of saggy feeling in my heart, and I had to text a few people to spread the news.

Yes. This may discredit absolutely everything I have said so far but I am about to tell you the truth: I thought My Chemical Romance was pretty awesome.

There are a lot of elements I like about their music. But I think it's something about Gerard Way's vocals that especially engage me. In my private mental world, when I close my eyes and pretend I'm a rock star on a big stage, strutting and sneering and crowing, he is what I sound like. He's my secret alter-ego. Eyeliner, gothy rendition of a Sgt. Pepper uniform, and that sharp voice- like crossing Brian Molko's pipes with a cheese grater and a jet pack. (I know, this fantasy might sound weirdly anticlimactic. Kind of like if you found out that Rob Zombie wears footy pajamas. Of course, you might think that would be awesome. In which case, I will imagine you in the audience next time I imagine I am Gerard Way.)

It definitely happened slowly. I really rather liked "Helena" from Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, which was arguably their breakout song from their unarguably breakout album. I was crazy about the video. (It was that one and The Killers' "Mr. Brightside" that I ended up buying- when you love something, you'll pay for it even if you could get it for free on YouTube.) But even now I'm not sure I'd like, heartily recommend Three Cheers. It's very.... Oh, yes. Emo. That is the word. The ugly word that turns every thinking person off of a band. But honestly, what else could you call an album that has songs like "It's Not A Fashion Statement, It's A Deathwish" or "Thank You For the Venom"... which is our title track tonight, by the way, and also a decent tune. It's a good example of its kind, though, for what it's worth.

I think what clung to me about that album, besides the aforementioned video, was a track called "Ghost of You" that I really liked, without even knowing the artist. I remember waking up from a dream the morning after my eighteenth birthday with that song in my head. I asked my sister if she knew it and I hummed a few bars. She raised an eyebrow and said "That's MCR."

Huh?

"My Chemical Romance."

Oh. Tres embarrassing. I wasn't an emo kid. I didn't like that stuff. I decided to tell no one.

But that kept happening. Every time I heard an MCR song I always found myself going "This ain't half bad" and then groaning when I found out the artist. So at last I caved and bought The Black Parade.

Which is a very different animal from Three Cheers.

The Black Parade is a cool little gem. It moved away from the melodrama on the previous album and moved more toward a concept album, lyrically. (I heard of a critic saying Roger Waters should sue for the story rights.) And it moved away from definitive "emo" and leaned toward glam rock, sonically. Don't get me wrong, it's still rough and punky but there's some extra swagger in there and it's great. Inexplicably great.

After I quietly came to the realization that I may in fact, LIKE My Chemical Romance, I confided this to my friend Alex, who has excellent and eclectic taste of his own. I knew he wouldn't judge me, see. In fact, he went out and listened to the album and came back as favorably impressed as I had. That made 2 of us, secret fans of the former emo band My Chemical Romance.

And then came Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys. Which, I think, was even better than Black Parade. The whole album I love unabashedly. But if you don't believe me, listen to "S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W" which sounds a little like a nursery rhyme from the dystopian post-apocalyptic future... Which is the setting of the album, by the way. This album also contains the unexpectedly beautiful "Sing" which that abomination Glee took and made into a super hit. (It's ok, I guess. You gotta sell out sometime, huh, guys? "Gimme gimme some of that vampire money, c'mon!")

The handfuls of music they released last year lean toward the earlier stuff, which as I mentioned, leaves me kinda cold compared to the concept albums. For being a return to that form, I'd venture to say it's better than the older work- they've learned a few tricks in the last few years. But it's too late for me, I'm already their fan. I would have borne with whatever they flung me, and given it a fair chance to grow on me.

And now they are no more. Yes, it's over. And I am sad. Maybe most sad that I didn't run off impetuously to Los Angeles to see them the last time their tour brought them close to me, which was for Danger Days. Alex and I toyed with the idea but ultimately we didn't. And now, there is nothing else to do but step up and say yes, I liked that band. I liked them a lot. I genuinely hope that we have not heard the last of these guys.

"Keep your boots tight, keep your gun close, and die with your mask on if you's got to."

Their body of work is available to hear on Spotify, with the exception of what came before Three Cheers (an album called I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love).


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The Next Day Revisited

David Bowie sat on the passenger's side and the two of us reveled in his latest album all the way home and then some. It finally arrived, you see. A solid three weeks of extra waiting was well worth it.

I think I waited because it would mean just a little more. If The Next Day ended up being his real final album, for some reason (and anything seems possible now), I would want it to be the one I bought fresh off the presses, as it were. (Which cliche led me to a quick YouTube education in how a vinyl record is made. It's pretty cool.) In that way, I feel like I have participated in my favorite artist's legacy just like his first fans, people who were teenagers before my own father was born, did. I went down to the record store the day it came out, with all my heart and all my change, and bought the big beautiful double vinyl with my name on it to mark it as a pre-order. David Sedaris mentions in his story "The Smoking Section" that if he'd had his way as a kid, his room would have smelled like a newly-unwrapped vinyl records: "that is to say, like anticipation." Bearing this in mind, when I got back to the car, I slit the plastic wrap and put my nose close and breathed deeply... yup, that's anticipation. That's Charlie Bucket using every other sensory organ to enjoy his yearly chocolate bar before giving it over to his taste buds.

It came with a CD version, which was pretty nice. And so it was that the big beautiful double vinyl with a large white square over Bowie's 1979 face, rode a contented shotgun to me as we wheeled around the neighborhood. The music on the record sang vicariously through the digital incarnation, louder than my gruff diesel engine. And this is how it went:

1. "The Next Day"
blasts fearlessly, charging, stomping. I love how the words you hear the most clearly at first are "Listen" and "Here I am". This is a great opening track. But it doesn't make sense as a single. (Basically none of them do.)

2. "Dirty Boys"
versed in burlesque horns, choruses with more melody. Couplet-rhymed verses. Parallel-structured chorus. Half sleazy and half hopeful. Another song that I'm increasingly loving with every listen.

3. "The Stars (Are Out Tonight)"
makes sense now. Somehow, contextually, this song packs a fiercer punch. Sounds darker, more desperate, more cynical. Also I notice for the first time with a chill the line "but they know just what we do when we toss and turn at night". Ew. That's actually a really creepy thought.

4. "Love Is Lost"
smolders. This is the point where I turn it up a little to snuggle deeper into the music. The second verse mystifies me, but it's the rising finish that gets me. The repeated chorus: "What have you done? O what have you done?"

5. "Where Are We Now?"
has also found power it lacked before in context. After the intensity of the previous track, the softer vocals feel balmy. This is still not the strongest track of the bunch but it works so much better alongside its fellows.

6. "Valentine's Day"
sounds much better the second listen-through. One of the most obvious allusions to real life social events, this song chronicles a high school gunman. The guitar on this one sounds lush and conversational to me, somewhat incongruous with the dark lyrics.

7. "If You Can See Me"
was labeled by another reviewer as "interesting but un-listenable". I disagree. It is almost tuneless and the vocals skitter without range. But the lyrics are really fascinating. The result is a kind of discordant, urgent tangle not unlike some parts of Earthling's "Dead Man Walking", with what might be a slam poet's rant for lyrics. Honestly, I like it.

8. "I'd Rather Be High"
sounds as psychedelic as the title might imply, melodically. Initially I was not that stoked about it, but it's rapidly growing on me, and I love this: "I stumble to the graveyard and I lay down by parents, whisper 'Just remember, duckies, everybody gets got.'"

9. "Boss of Me"
swings, lazily but resolutely. It reminds me of "I've Been Waiting for You", the Neil Young cover on Heathen only more... Bowie. I dunno. I like this song more each time I hear it, too, but I'm still figuring it out.

10. "Dancing Out in Space"
has a beautiful melody. Yearning, but not sluggish. The rhythm of the vocals in the chorus contrasts sharply with that of the verses, rather like in "Dirty Boys" and I think it's a good effect in both cases. If I picked one word out as David Bowie's favorite, it's "star" or "stars" and this song with its astral setting and mood doesn't deviate.

11. "How Does the Grass Grow?"
remains sort of inaccessible to me. This is the only track I can say I like about as much as I did the first time, when everything was a happy wash and only a few things stood out in bolded caps. This isn't one of them.

12. "(You Will) Set the World on Fire"
... no words. Just a huge smile on my face and my heart skips a beat. This is what the kitschy song "New York's in Love" from Never Let Me Down meant to be. "I can hear the nation, I can hear the nation cry..." I'm adopting this as my secret theme song. (Don't judge me. You know you have one.)

13. "You Feel So Lonely You Could Die"
takes the mood abruptly very low. Might check the liner notes to make sure this wasn't penned by Morrissey. And yet, is that a little bit of snark I'm detecting? Can't quite tell if he's joking with me yet, with the melodramatic title and doo-wop ooohing and ahhhing. I confess, I can't spend much time on this song because the next one blows my mind.

14. "Heat"
closes the album with a slow, ominous heartbeat. At once I am reminded of Heathen and Outside and yet, it would be out of place on either one of these. Brooding. Haunting. Dark. But beautiful, especially when the violins start in as the pressure builds. The fact that there are bonus tracks is almost disappointing because I'd be glad to let the phrase "my father ran the prison" echo in my brain for a while.

Bonus tracks:
15. "So She" -charming and kind of cartoony. I can tell why this is an outtake or bonus. This isn't what we've just been hearing. A cousin, maybe, but not a first cousin.
16. "Plan"- instrumental echoing the mood of "Heat", which isn't a bad thing. Like other reviewers I felt this one suffered from being too short!
17. "I'll Take You There"- See, now this one sounds like a single to me. Politically-charged much? Yes. Unless my powers of interpretation are radically failing me, it's about illegal immigration, from the immigrant's perspective. But it's punchy and appealing. I'm not sure why this one didn't make the regular track cut. The smoky lyrical mood and fierce music fit with the rest, in my opinion.

So. Now it's been a few weeks and a few listens. The shock and thrill of a broken silence is abated (a little ^_^) and you know what I think? I think it's a great album. I think it's better, richer, than Reality and more realized than Heathen, both of which I love. It reminds me of my favorite album, Lodger, with its varied musical influences plain as genetics on a face. It reminds me of Scary Monsters because it has so much to say and it will take a long time to digest all of it. Most of all, I love it because it's classic Bowie. To explain further, I'd probably need to be able to play an instrument. But if, by chance, you are a Bowie fan too, then I wouldn't have to explain. We could just look at each other and go "I knooooowwww...."

You can listen to the album in full on Spotify, of course. I won't bother linking to it. You know where to find it. And you should find it. Tell me what you think, especially if you are predisposed to liking/loving Bowie.

Conor Oberst Part II: A Concert & a Kiss

The short hipster guy in a button-down shirt seemed disappointed when I turned down his invitation to come back to the hotel where he and his friends were staying. I told him I had people I was with but it had been nice talking to him. If only he'd known what a real fan's after-party consists of. Me, I know the secret:

If the venue is small and the crowd is fervent, there is a possibility that after the show is over, the artist will come 'round the back or side to mingle for a few minutes. This trick I learned from the same ex-boyfriend who, incidentally, introduced me to this artist's music originally. (Our lives have diverged for good, now, but I will be grateful to him for several things, this among the more frivolous ones.)

I will admit, there was no way to be sure that Conor Oberst would do that. He has a reputation for being surly and detached from fans. He hates it when people sing along at shows, so to be contrary he alters the words a bit for live performances. He shuns the laud and hullabaloo of being an icon, so he only releases albums under the name "Bright Eyes". And he never smiles onstage.

Well, this was 2008, and he'd done the first thing, releasing a "solo" and eponymous album that I really really liked, earlier that year, so put one tally under "Never Say Never". This was a warm night in Tucson, AZ, at a pretty venue called The Joint, and he had not only smiled, he'd been so stumbling drunk, he looked like he was having fun. He didn't even seem to mind when those of us who didn't know better (like me) unfolded our arms to sing along with whatever songs we knew. So now all bets were off.

The show was rock-solid. Conor Oberst, who I'd never really cottoned to until I heard this album made with "The Mystic Valley Band", delivered. He passionately bellowed into the microphone and strummed away on his guitar like the chords could bring world peace if he just hit them hard enough. He tried a few times to stand up on an amplifier, alarming us a little with the way he wobbled and swayed in his alcohol-fueled exuberance. But what should have been a slightly disturbing spectacle starring an artist who sometimes gives too much fuel to his inner demons, was instead almost transcendent. It was beautiful. With his eyes closed and a hint of a blissful smile as he sang "Danny Callahan", he was beautiful, and it moved me deeply.

So I, the undeserving fan-initiate, stood pressed against the ropes under the watchful eye of a few security guards after the show, eyes trained on the back door of the venue with absolute precision. Sure enough, he came stumbling out and the crowd (mostly female) of superfans around me erupted in a cooing euphony like so many happy pigeons. "Connor, Connor, Connor" they murmured, and sure enough again, he moved toward us. Hands thrust in his direction and he took them and shook them and muttered generally good-natured responses. It was pretty clear he was still very disoriented. It may have been my idea but I pulled out my ticket stub (thank goodness I found a pen, after fishing around in my purse for a moment longer) and held it toward him.

He moved toward me, as if nothing would please him more than to sign my scrap of paper. The pen nearly didn't work but after a moment of confusion it did and he handed back the ticket. I touched his hand and leaned close over the rising swell of fangirl voices, and told him the only thing I really felt like I had of value. The only thing any of us, really, have the right to say to a stranger who has impressed us.

"Conor, you did really great tonight. I mean it, you were great. That was a wonderful show."

Our proximity turned into a hug at that moment. I felt his cheek, bizarrely soft and smooth, brush mine as he told me, "Thank you, thank you. You're a sweet, sweet lady." And then he kissed me on the cheek, as his bodyguards pulled him away from me.

I think for a moment I blacked out. But I was taking up space now that I'd had my turn, and I didn't want to get jumped and have my cheek torn from my face as the girls near me took up the incredulous cry of "He kissed her!" So I fled, to the car where my sister, mother, sister's then-boyfriend, etc, were waiting. I was dizzied with the impact of being starstruck. "He kissed me!" I said breathlessly, grinning, and flashing my signed ticket.

My sister's face broke like I'd dropped something made of porcelain and dreams. She'd been toward the back of the throng and hadn't even gotten close enough to look into his face. The triumphant feeling drained from me instantly, and I gave her my lasting prize, the ticket I didn't deserve to have signed. If I could have transferred the kiss from his lips to her face too, I would have done that, because no matter what, I love my sister more.

We saw Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band again in the spring, in Tempe, but things were different this time. He looked healthier, to his credit, (much more sober and characteristically grim) and performed a good set, but the magic was comparatively absent. I felt torn, glad for his sake that he was in better physical form and mental state, and favorably impressed with the new material performed that night, but sad that something had to be missing.

Conor Oberst, wherever you are, and in whatever incarnation you are right now (Bright Eyes, Mystic Valley Boy, Monster of Folk, or Desaparacido), hi. I hope you are well. You don't remember me but I remember you. I didn't deserve to be the one you kissed, like Arizona doesn't deserve to be a state you shun (most of the people who rabidly adore you are on your side about the whole immigration business- why are you punishing them?). But I'm really glad it happened, like I'm glad you brought the magic to the stage that night. I still listen to the Mystic Valley Albums when it's springtime and when it's autumn, especially, and my friend Rob called the MoF album the best one he'd heard in 2010. And with the sincerity of someone who you only managed to win over by being yourself, rather than Bright Eyes, I'll stand by what I said then: you do a great job doing what you do. "I don't wanna dream if it won't come true."

"Nikorette" by Conor Oberst & the Mystic Valley Band

"We never change our tune, we change ourselves": Poets of the Fall

It's possible that it's just the hipster in me, but I love having a band in my Top 10 that nobody else this side of the Atlantic knows about. It gives me ample opportunity to be the harbinger of good music. It helps a lot when the band you wrap up with a bow and present to people with that "I-have-something-you-will-like" kind of glee... is actually something wonderful. I have probably put Poets of the Fall on every single mix I've made since I discovered them in 2008. I've never found them to be a bitter pill for anyone so far.

Oddly enough, one of my favorite memories about Poets of the Fall includes none other than the German exchange student Christian, mentioned in my last post. It was I who infected him with Poets and it was he who suggested that we celebrate his first American Halloween by dressing as the characters from the (iconic, fabulous and really cool) music video for "Carnival of Rust". I hadn't really dressed up for Halloween in years, but I told him that if he was serious, I would make it happen. In retrospect, that project was the highlight of our acquaintance. Together we tracked down a sandy-colored sport coat for him, and a gas mask for me. He wore slacks and a hat he already owned. I borrowed a dress from my sister, and a large porcelain dolly from my grandma, and made myself an oversized pinwheel lollipop.

Christian expressed some concern that we would not be recognizable. I had already resigned myself to this and didn't mind, but one afternoon a few days before our party debut, I cut out of red and black felt, in Gothic lettering, the letters to spell "Carnival of Rust" and pinned them across the yoke of his jacket. And intimacy, thy name is applying makeup to another person! (Or otherwise using another person's earth-suit as your canvas.) It was with great tenderness and delight that I painted his face white with powder from Hot Topic and black with who-knows-what to crack the mask like porcelain.

And thanks to whoever took this picture. It's somehow the only one I have of that night.

At the themed milonga we walked before the judges for the costume contest, competing for best duo, and Christian now told me he was afraid we would be passed over: "They will think we are too creepy!" By this, I think, he may have meant "too obscure a reference", but lo, the first prize went to "Those two, whatever they are." Never a prouder moment that year. We took our spoils (a bottle of wine and a big bag of peanut M&M's) back to his house and consumed them according to our appetites (wine for one, candy for both) and talked about linguistics and philosophy and language barriers. Some of my favorite topics, apart from music.

This would have been a postlude to what I thought of as our friendship. What a way to make a last stand!

At another party we attended, Christian got so tired of being asked to explain his costume (which did seem to disturb the slightly buzzed state university students in their ironic half-costumes and skimpy princess outfits), that he took to simply saying "I'm a creep!" I think, this time, he may have meant "I'm an eerie living fortune-telling mannequin from a steampunk music video by an amazing Finnish rock band- you wouldn't understand." I myself never minded being an obscure reference for Halloween. The truth is, in those times of trying to fit into social circles where I didn't really belong, I wouldn't have been any more identifiable if I'd simply gone as myself.

Thank goodness for the lessons we learn from times like that. :)

I've shed a lot of who and what I thought I was during that period of my life, but the Poets of the Fall remain with me. They are my underdog band, the band with a devoted hometown crowd in their Scandinavian sector, the band with a handful of loving constituents here in on American soil. This is the band for whom I'm Jenny Appleseed, planting bits here and there, waiting for a legion of fans to grow (and a North American tour to be announced). If I had the cash I'd just go to them and hold the proverbial poster proclaiming my love in miles traveled. I listen to the Poets of the Fall because they are unique and uplifting, and I listen to them often.

The Spotify list is called "We Never Change Our Tune".

For Your Playlist: Side A
1. "Lift" from Signs of Life
2. "Carnival of Rust" from Carnival of Rust
3. "Dreaming Wide Awake" from Twilight Theatre
4. "Sorry Go 'Round" from Carnival of Rust

For Your Playlist: Side B
1. "Cradled in Love" from Temple of Thought
2. "The Ultimate Fling (The Director's Cut)" from Revolution Roulette
3. "Don't Mess With Me" (live) from the Carnival of Rust EP
4. "The Beautiful Ones" from the Lift EP

You can't listen to much of them on Spotify. As such, only half of these songs were in my original Poets of the Fall sampler list, but the ones filling the gaps are still pretty good, especially the live version of "Don't Mess With Me". PotF have 5 albums to date and they're each worth every cent, in my opinion. It's really hard to pick a favorite. They are all clearly the same band but each has kind of its own nuance, like a set of siblings that strongly resemble each other but are not quite twins:

Photo by Tami Webb

By the way, one of these is my wonderful Prince Genuine, and yes, I introduced him to Poets of the Fall too, and yes, he also likes them a lot. His favorite song is "Lift" which was kind of what I was hoping. :)

"Sweetheart, wake up": Yann Tiersen

Christian K. and I had, it turns out, very little in common. In the height of our friendship I thought there was more (you know how it goes), but it all boiled down to about four things. One of them was Argentine Tango, which we both discovered that year, at about the same time- he became known for his intensity and sense of adventure on the dance floor, and I'm pretty sure he charmed every last one of us. Another thing was grammar. Christian was from Germany, attending a year at my American "uni-wer-sity", and he found my conversational English, generally clear of "like" and "y'know" and "um", refreshing. A third thing, as it turns out, was my friend Caitlin, although of course my relationship with her was/is considerably different! (And I hope I don't embarrass my good friend by referencing this- we were all crazy in love, if you recall, in 2009.)

We shared one other major interest, and that, you may have guessed, is music. It was probably Christian with whom I first danced a tango to the piano version of "La valse d'Amelie", and it was definitely Christian who passed to me my first taste of Yann Tiersen.

Yann Tiersen is a French composer/musician best known, perhaps, for his remarkable soundtrack to the equally remarkable film Amelie. As the story goes, he was a little musical prodigy as a kid until one day, sick of playing classical music, he simply smashed his violin to bits and took up guitar for a while. Luckily, he still plays the violin (beautifully) as well as the piano and a number of other instruments. His recent material is a kind of dark, heavily-layered, and foggy, as if progressive rock and alternative rock had a baby. I've heard it compared to Godspeed You! Black Emperor. His earlier work fits pretty easily under the classical handle, but it's classical music written for a contemporary pop-music audience- bright, whimsical, wistful, dreamy. I could listen to Yann Tiersen for days and days and not get tired of him. I saw him on tour for Dust Lane (released in 2010, show was in 2011- a dark, personal album about love and death) and it was one of the coolest and most different concerts I'd ever seen- it felt like having four walls of music built up around you as you stood still. He seemed so sweet and humble, a man of few words (specifically, "Thank you") with a scruffy face and worn out Converse kicks, who could make his instruments sigh and sing.

So wherever you are now, Christian, you crazy kid, I hope you're still dancing, and Tausend Dank. And while I am at it, I'll thank Mike H., who burned me the Amelie soundtrack, and Jacob D., who gave me more Tiersen than I could digest in six months. Almost.

And it is with great pleasure that I now turn it up on your radio (on my Spotify as "Sweetheart, Wake Up"), and you'll thank me later.

Yann Tiersen makes me wish I didn't suck so bad at playing the violin.

For Your Playlist: Side A

1. "The Neighborhood" from The Lighthouse/Everything Is Calm

2. "La valse d'Amelie (version orchestre)" from Amelie from Montmartre

3. "Summer Nursery Rhyme No. 2" from Rue des Cascades 

4. "Bagatelle" from L'absente

For Your Playlist: Side B

1. "Deja Loin" from C'etait Ici

2. "Sur le Fil" from C'etait Ici

3. "Au Dessous Du Volcan" from Tabarly

4. "Amy" from Dust Lane

Introducing the Band- Or, Reflection on the Difference Between Writers and Rockers

"I want the style of a woman, the kiss of a man/ Introducing the band!" -The London Suede

Today I read a post by a dear friend of mine, one Elizabeth Barrett, and it was so charming I decided to file away the post I was anticipating to write tonight in favor of acknowledging hers. If you'd like to read the "parent post" (and you should- it's darling) you can do so so here. If you choose not to (shame on you- it's darling) I will summarize crudely and say that it is an essay exploring a particularly shy aspect of her personality, and the vehicle is a reflection of a memory of some concerts she saw- particularly primo seats for Neil Diamond.

I don't listen to Neil Diamond and I don't think anybody would have guessed from looking at my rock pedigree that anyone in my family did. But my dad famously (according to his sisters, who report this story with an all-knowing smugness of which only we older sisters are capable) got bounced from a Neil Diamond concert for attempting to get onstage and interact with the singer. The story goes something like that Dad suddenly felt an overwhelming urge to take home a souvenir from the show, and the story says that the selected item was Mr. Diamond's belt. I find this last part especially odd. It is disconcerting, to say the least, to imagine your dad grabbing at another man's belt onstage. Especially if that man is Neil Diamond, and Dad's record collection tends to have things like Frank Zappa, Judas Priest, or (on the other hand) Jackson Browne. But this story gives me context to appreciate the fan fervor in The Other Elizabeth Barrett's story.

Except I think even my dad would have been tired long before the 20th "Bah-bah-bah" of "Sweet Caroline". And he doesn't really put his hands in the air for concerts anymore, either. It has less to do with getting into it, I think, than with not feeling particularly demonstrative. I thought for sure he was miserable during the Bowie concert, but as I was bouncing along radiantly back to the car with him afterward, he said "That might have been one of the best shows I've ever seen."

Me, I do put my hands in the air. My fan fervor can become an uncontrollable fan frenzy. I don't mosh but sometimes I wish I did... instead, I do what little people do: squeeze to the front of the crowd, very politely, and open my eyes and ears as wide as I can, and hyperventilate into the music. The time will come, I'm sure, when this will not thrill me so much as it does now, and it will likely have to do with significant hearing loss at an early age. But for now I will clap and cheer and sing my heart out. I once held hands with a stranger at a folk-rock concert, and I saw a girl a few feet from me singing and crying at once at another (also folk-rock...). I have no problem letting it tear through me.

But that's because music brings this out of me. That's because true artists have the power to captivate and pull things out of you that, short of religious experience, don't often surface. That's why Jim Morrison could hold the Coliseum in the palm of his hand, and start a riot with a word.

I genuinely used to dream of being a rock star. I'd performed quite a lot as a kid for church and school functions, such that by virtue of the demand I received I thought I was good. I don't remember stage fright except as an affectation- being shy and nervous was something people demonstrated because it was done. But eventually I started to grow up and started to feel it. Oddly, it wasn't really so much for when I was singing for an audience (of course, that happened less and less) as for when I was speaking to one. When I was just saying what was on my mind. My heart still pounds and my face flushes and I twitch my feet if I'm sitting down or twist my hands if I'm standing up. When I give my own gift, my own thoughts, to a crowd, I lose all my internal composure and just pray it doesn't sound like word vomit.

But I think maybe it's less that I am afraid people will think I'm foolish, off topic, etc, than that I won't do justice to what I want to tell them.

I'm content to be a face in a grocery store. I hate playing Speed Basketball because there will come a point where I, absolutely spotlit, will hold up my team with my ineptitude for minutes that seem like eternity.

But when I'm at a rock concert, I'm part of the music. I don't hold a candle to the artist's charisma, but I will absorb and learn from it and someday maybe I will speak my own mind, present my own art, with as much power and conviction. I will learn how to help people feel that way, like they can throw up their arms and repeat the chorus til they collapse, and together we will have no inhibitions.

"I need you to believe in not me, but my words." -Taylor Mali

And for laughs: Tim Minchin- "Rock and Roll Nerd" (Disclaimer: PG-13 for strong language)

"Je nage, mais les sons me suivent": Arcade Fire

"Je nage, mais les sons me suivent": "I swim, but the sound follows me"

You already know I was hopelessly devoted to David Bowie. I'd say there is a distinct possibility that I would never have really, genuinely allowed myself to love anything else if he himself hadn't made any recommendations. I read in an interview from around the time of Reality that David Bowie thought that Arcade Fire showed some promise. (Yes, it's time to deviate from the old school pattern and talk about something 100% Made In the 21st Century.)

In 2007 I read a review in a magazine about Neon Bible, and the review was more than favorable- it glowed. I recognized the band's name from the Bowie interview from a few years before. I bought the album. For several weeks, while I worked on my epic final project for my high school art class, I don't remember listening to much else. I didn't buy Funerals for another year or so, but I did get The Suburbs on the day it came out. I guess that means that in a way I've been on their team from the beginning, before anybody knew who they were, before they ironically won Album of the Year at the Grammy Awards for The Suburbs. Which doesn't make me any more or less of a fan than anybody else, by the way. It just makes them more special to me, because I feel like I've been watching them grow for a while.

In 2011, which was for me the Year of Concerts (more on that another day), my friend and even bigger music fan Rob went to see them at the Comerica Theater (FKA The Dodge which is where I saw Bowie). The Local Natives opened for them. They were pretty good. The weeknight crowd was sluggish, as usual. I perceived that AF felt that vibe too. There came a point at which I felt like they just sort of dismissed the tepid crowd and began to just play for themselves tonight. I could have sworn I watched the decision cross Win Butler's face, and they just started to pretend we weren't even there. And then the energy tripled. Not ours. Theirs. Have you ever felt like music is moving through you? Making something more out of you, like you're the giant wand through which one of those enormous Ren-Faire bubbles is being blown? That's kind of how I felt. Regine wailed "Sometimes I wonder if the world's so small/ That we can never get away from the Sprawl" like she was singing to God Himself.

That's what I love about Arcade Fire. Even at their lowest key, they are passionate. That first summer after high school graduation, the first summer my family went to San Diego for a few days to vacation, I walked along the sand in the dark with "Ocean of Noise" from Neon Bible in one ear, and the Pacific Ocean in the other. I waded out a little further toward the water and let the tide exhort me up to my knees, hearing the rasping boom of waves and the mournful horny outro before "The Well and the Lighthouse" broke in with its heart pounding. I felt passionate and tremendously big and hopelessly small all at once. I think I will replay that scene every time my path leads to a moonlit oceanic beach, for all my life. It's the little moments, without any especial significance, after all, that make up a life, and sometimes you have to see the beauty and the dramatic in the regular.

Which, incidentally, is what The Suburbs conveyed to me.

You can find all their albums on Spotify or any kind of record store you like. Since there are only three, (and there are only three full ones so far, not counting the EP that preceded Funeral) there is not a lot of material with which to make a mix tape. Furthermore, to try to compile a "Best Of" for Arcade Fire is, in my opinion, sort of detrimental to the body of work, since the tracklist on every album sounds so good in its original format.

However.

If you insist on only a taste, here are a few video-based suggestions:

1) "Sprawl II: Mountains Beyond Mountains" from The Suburbs
2) "Neon Bible" performed in an elevator from Neon Bible (and you haven't seen anything til you've seen a 7-8 person band making music in an elevator)
3) "Wake Up" featuring David Bowie from Funeral

"My advice is to not let the boys in": Bob Dylan

Predictably, perhaps, this post begins with the beginning. In this case, it would have been the car, again, though which car I cannot quite say, nor could I pinpoint the year. I think it was before the tapes came out from the depths of the entertainment center, and well before the surviving vinyl came sneaking into the house. This may even have been before Dad bought me Fleetwood Mac, and maybe even before he tried to impress upon me the merits of James Taylor and Hall & Oates (how would he have guessed I'd pick Judas Priest and Ozzy over both of those respectable acts?*). I can tell you it was nighttime, and the whole family was in there, and Dad said he had a treat for us. He popped a CD in and admonished me to take note of the violin on this album. This seemed like an appropriate connection to make, since at the time I hadn't yet admitted to myself that I'd given up playing it.

Lo and behold, after a few measures of gentle, serious guitar, there it came- the low, husky voice of a violin with a story to tell. At first, I felt curious.

Then, that voice. Not particularly pleasant, especially not compared to the violin, which spiraled like ribbons around it. I put on my best sub-teen sour face and turned it toward the window. My siblings were equally, and more vocally, tickled to mockery by the singer. Mom was on his and Dad's side, and on the verge of chiding us on our poor taste, when the wording in the lyrics turned a little coarse. But in the end, good taste (and a dab of forgiveness for the aforementioned lyrics to "Hurricane") won out. Although it took months of hearing Desire in the car (Mom played "Mozambique" on endless repeat), and some of my own initiative, I ended up falling for Bob Dylan. Like anybody in their right musical mind does sooner or later. 

What was once in my mind was the most obnoxious song on that record, "Isis", is now one of my favorites. And when somebody asks me if anybody asked me about the very best Bob Dylan song, despite my modest gemlike collection of Bob Dylan's catalog, I have to again point to Desire and say the best song is "Sara".

If I have my history right, Desire was recorded at, well, record speed, and it came at a dramatic moment in Robert Zimmerman's personal life, too- his marriage was ending and his wife was in the studio when he recorded "Sara". It was a song for/about her. Again, if my memory serves, he only allowed for one cut of that song, because it was so personal and emotional. If this legend is true, its truth is supported in the recording. You can hear the sorrow and the love of something that was lost. 

I used to have a link to a video of some concert footage where he actually choked up a little in the middle, and you can see a escape his eye, but apparently it has been removed from YouTube for copyright issues. This version is less emotional compared to that, but I think my assessment still stands. 

Above all, I love Dylan's lyrics. I love that he can/could say more in a single song in the lyrical fashion of the bluesmen than some artists say in their entire careers. He changed the game more singlehandedly than anybody since the game was invented. The Beatles changed the way they wrote songs because he once said he'd like them better if their songs had any depth of content. Bowie wrote "Song for Bob Dylan" and put it on his Hunky Dory album, that "his words were truthful vengeance that could pin us to the floor."

Not that it's all been glory and roses where his track record is concerned- I once heard a critic's quote about his Christmas album that ran something like: "When Dylan sings 'I'll Be Home For Christmas' it sounds more like a threat than a promise." But again, that's part of being human, and you could expect nothing less from as fascinating and idiosyncratic an artist as he is. 

I did see him in concert, so to speak. I didn't catch much of the show, and if I felt vindictive I'd suggest you ask my baby sister why that is, but it suffices me to say that we were late and that's OK. The concert was at the Coliseum at the Arizona State Fair, which is a totally acceptable venue for acts that are not Bob Dylan. As it was, his voice rolled like a wave of thunder and static electricity through the place, with the static, unfortunately, winning out. I barely recognized the songs I arrived in time to hear, the sound was so bad. And I think it's a reasonable point to say that an already unique voice has not really aged that well. But I'm willing to let it slide, because he's freakin' Bob Dylan, rock's original anti-hero. (Other acts that came up short for some reason will not be so lucky, but we'll talk about that later.)

Here's why YOU should also like Bob Dylan (search for the playlist under the name "Don't Let the Boys In: Bob Dylan" on Spotify):

For Your Playlist: Side A

1. "Tangled Up In Blue" from Blood on the Tracks

2. "Subterranean Homesick Blues" from Bringing It All Back Home

3. "The Times They Are A-Changin" from the album of the same title

4. "All Along the Watchtower" from John Wesley Harding

For Your Playlist: Side B

1. "Tombstone Blues" from Highway 61 Revisited

2. "Thunder on the Mountain" from Modern Times 

3.  "I Want You" from Blonde on Blonde

4. "Sara" from Desire

Don't Let the Boys In: Bob Dylan

*By the way, I appreciate James Taylor and Hall & Oates a lot more now than I did when I was twelve or thirteen. Might just go to show ya that sometimes it's the softer stuff that requires a more mature listener.

"Brats in battalions were ruling the streets": Alice Cooper

First and foremost, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ALICE!! I know, it was yesterday (2/4) but our adorable mutant rocker next door turned 65 yesterday, per my mathematics. I hope it was a great one!

There is a journal entry of mine from ages ago (I was probably twelve) in which I, quite gravely and quite hilariously, declare before the record for future generations, that I will never get into music by people as obviously deranged and terrifying as Alice Cooper. The inspiration, I believe, was this: Alice Cooper Marriott Commercial

I explain in my journal that there is a clear and distinct difference between cool freakiness (as exemplified by my middle school posse and myself, since everyone becomes self-consciously awkward and apart at that age) and bad freakiness, like a grown man who wears streaked makeup and chains and calls himself by a girl's name.

I've retracted a lot of promises I made to myself before I was 16, some of them for the worse, some for the better and some for the heck of it. My dissipation of the anti-Alice Cooper pact occurred that fateful night when Dad gave us the tapes. Among them was Alice's From The Inside album, which he gave to us with an admonition to skip a few tracks. Once I took a break from my constant Bowie-ing, I gave it a listen, and I liked it.

It took a couple years for Alice to really work his way into my playlists, but when he did, boy howdy! There are tapes and tapes from that time, loaded with pieces of Billion Dollar Babies, Killer, From the Inside, and of course, "Poison," of which I could not get enough. It helped that I discovered his radio show, Nights With Alice Cooper (to find a station, click here), and fell in love with his sense of humor. He became my kind of rock & roll sailor uncle, in the sense that I felt like I was sitting at his feet each night listening raptly to stories of legendary people and legendary times. I saw him in concert in Las Vegas promoting his Dirty Diamonds album in October (the 17th, I wanna say?) 2005 with my dad & little sister. Our seats weren't all that great and the acoustics at the Joint were, somehow, even less great, but I had a ball just the same. I wore the concert shirt under my school uniform for the rest of the week, despite its being an XL (all the appropriate sizes were sold out- that shirt hugged my curves like a muumuu).

I think what I love about Alice Cooper is the absolute silliness. He can write a perfectly dandy rock song and yes, it is about a gambler in an insane asylum. He can write a concept album about being sent to to H-E-double-hockeysticks and when it's over you don't feel like he took you there, can you feel me? At the end of the day, Alice Cooper is all about vaudeville, caricature, and gag-grotesque, with a little bit of genuine heart thrown in for good measure (he's included a softspoken ballad on every album starting with "Only Women Bleed" on Welcome To My Nightmare, if I've got my facts right). And you know what? I love the streaked makeup and leather and chains, and his hard-earned girl's name.

He rounds out the Triumvirate of my All-Time Favorite Classic Artists, and are a few reasons why:

For your playlist: Side A
1. "I'm Eighteen" from Love It To Death
2. "Welcome To My Nightmare" from the album of the same name
3. "Generation Landslide" from Billion Dollar Babies 
4. "Poison" from Trash (of course)

For your playlist: Side B

1. "Perfect" from Dirty Diamonds
2. "Wish I Was Born in Beverly Hills" from From the Inside

3. "I'm the Coolest" from Alice Cooper Goes To Hell

4. "Halo of Flies" from Killer

I have posted this playlist, plus one super secret bonus track by Alice and one of his shock-rock heirs, on Spotify under the name Brats in Battalions: Alice Cooper. <3 Follow me on Spotify to join the listening party, and show me your supportive rock-n-roll devil horns by subscribing to me here if you like what you've heard so far.

Up next: an artist renowned for both his opaque songwriting and his distinctively weird vocals (but who still sold prodigiously in countries where they don't speak English). Guess who?

"By the way, which one's Pink?": Pink Floyd

When I was a little girl, my dad sometimes took me to church functions known as "daddy-daughter camp-outs". Dad's not overly fond of camping, but I have a few memories of going. I know it had to be a daddy-daughter outing because I'm pretty sure there were pine trees outside. I was in the cab of the truck and a song came on that Dad turned up. When I stole a glance at him, he was staring off somewhere else ("Perhaps the road?" snickers jaded Retrospection), and gently tapping his fingertips on the dash.

The lyrics startled me, and they stuck with me. A minnowish pinch of the song, mournful and vaporous, swam little circles in the tidepool of my child-mind. It came to me sometimes like an aural ghost, once in a while, to make me wonder and not forget.

Give or take ten years later, I was a freshman in high school. A friend in Spanish I, with whom I would eventually form a kind of unofficial musical duo and have many adventures for a few short years (wherever you are, hi), asked me one day, full of musing: "Have you ever listened to 'the wall'?" He offered no clarification because he wanted to test me, as he liked so well to do that year, when he still thought of himself as a kind of older brother/protector/mentor. So I dutifully probed. "You know, The Wall, by Pink Floyd."

I told him I had not heard it. He smiled the way he did when he knew I was about to thank him for the education, and told me he'd burn it for me.

As soon as I saw the track-listing, and that the first track of the second disc (Side 3, Track 1 in vinyl terms) was a song called "Hey You", I got a chill. Such a mundane phrase but I found myself thinking that my secret mystery song might be solved. I almost forgot to really tune into it, the first time, when I knelt beside my stereo, and whooped and crowed to myself in recognition. I have to admit, it took me a couple of weeks to make myself listen to the first half of the album, so fascinating and eerie was the second.

I personally like Pink Floyd best when I'm somewhere out by myself, surrounded by nature. I once took a walk, for instance, with just my headphones and Wish You Were Here, in the desert on a partially-rainy afternoon. The sunlight streamed bright white-gold through the clouds, which were dense and gray as pigeons, and the rain fell so lightly it sparkled as it fell. The air, uncharacteristic of the area, was perfectly still and silent. It felt so otherworldly and bizarre, I honestly wondered if I hadn't stepped into another dimension.

But Pink Floyd, for all its darkness and weirdness, is beautiful too, and never more so, I think, than under the stars. I love taking Pink Floyd on midnight drives on the highway, windows down til I find a quiet spot to pull over and think for a while. Like the night, it is dark, but it is beautiful. Do you think they're mutually exclusive, or is a little darkness okay on your playlist?

For your playlist: A-Side
1. "Breathe In The Air"/"On The Run" from Dark Side of the Moon (and in my mind these 2 technically distinct tracks are inseparable)
2. "Comfortably Numb" from The Wall
3. "Bike" from The Piper at the Gates of Dawn (I understand the demented duck-sound at the end is Syd Barrett's laugh, sampled, and looped backward)
4. "Wish You Were Here" from the album by the same name

For your playlist: B-Side
1. "Careful With That Axe, Eugene" from Ummagumma
2. "See Emily Play" from Piper at the Gates of Dawn 
3. "Dogs" from Animals
4. "Welcome To the Machine" from Wish You Were Here

Here is my first-ever attempt at a Floydian drawing- behold, a very vague and dissimilar David Gilmour. I wish I'd done the photo justice, but I was having to use my iPad for the image. 

And for anybody who knows the story of Pink Floyd, I'd like to submit that yes, I know who Syd Barrett is, and yes, I consider Piper at the Gates of Dawn an interesting piece of work. But there is an element of experiment that bordered on silly during the Barrett years that doesn't move me. So you'll have to forgive me. I'll lay down flowers in tribute to the heartbreaking mythology of Pink Floyd some other time. Right now I'm just talking about how the seeds were planted in me. You who are in the know may also wish to note that if I had to choose a side between Waters and Gilmour, my ears tell me Waters and my heart tells me Gilmour- judge me not unkindly!

Coming up next: an artist whose birthday is on Monday! and who worked with the same producer in his early recording years as Pink Floyd did for The Wall in the late 1970's. Guess who? ;)

"He's got his eye on your soul, his hand on your heart": David Bowie

David frickin' Bowie. Even his name gives me chills. This, for me, is where it all began. I was twelve when I saw Labyrinth (oh, those infamous tight trousers!) and that was my first witting encounter with David Bowie. It was actually his voice, not his awkward wardrobe, that made the deepest impression on me.

Awkward wardrobe is a good place to start if you're trying to explain him to somebody who has never heard of him (indeed an unfortunate uncultured cretin). Well, not awkward, but certainly varied and interesting. In the late Sixties and earliest Seventies were the man-dresses, then the flamboyant jumpsuits and leotards and no eyebrows and kabuki makeup and that rooster-red mullet, Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane, if you please. Then there was the lean, lean, coked up Thin White Duke, all German and vocal swagger. Then the late years of the Seventies with less image than sound and the Berlin trilogy. Then the ghastly Eighties with the blonde hair...

But what I really like about David Bowie's history and catalogue is that he was a kid who had a dream to be famous and to be true to his art and himself, and he went and made it happen. He was absolutely fearless. No two records sound identical, and many of them are absolutely distinct from the ones before and after them. I love that his body of work isn't perfect. There were a couple of albums that left ya scratching your head, "What-on-earth-was-THAT?", and I think that's to be expected in a career as long and varied. But I didn't know all this at first. All I knew was that "John, I'm Only Dancing" had about the sexiest "Ow!" interjected at the closing of a song that I had ever heard. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VrqCBsbeuc is the disconcerting but fascinating video for it... if you're squeamish about "weird" I'd probably turn up the volume and but not watch the video)

That first summer when Dad gave us his cassette tapes, the one I wanted most of all was ChangesOneBowie, which is his first Best Of collection. I don't think even my parents know how many times I listened to it. For me it was almost a sacred ritual that summer. I would wake up early and slip down to the basement where my dad's drum set quietly snoozed next to a sleek silver portable stereo, and, with headphones in, commune with Bowie for a while before the household got up. It just... Moved me. There is something about his voice, in all its seasons and ages, that captures me.

That was it, then. For months, I had no other serious musical relationships whatsoever. I entertained a few others on the side, yes, but I basically breathed Bowie. Before I started buying CDs my dad literally resurrected his other Bowie tape by transplanting the film into what had been a Judas Priest cartridge, and I will tell you, my dad isn't a surgeon but after that memorable 45 minutes, I'd be pretty comfortable with him in an OR. The first album I bought on CD was, I am pretty sure, Ziggy Stardust.

2003 was a really painful and beautiful time to come into your own as a fan, though: the album Reality came out with a supporting tour that year, and I saw the Phoenix show on 2/5/04. One of the most thrilling nights of my life. He was, it was, beautiful. And then, a few months later, there was the emergency heart surgery, the abrupt end of a critically praised tour, and then, nothing but scraps, whispers, and crumbs, for almost 10 years.

It felt like I had fallen desperately in love with someone who then had to leave. My wonderful new Sailor had shipped out, and I thought he would return in a year or so, as he had always done. Then the letters home became rarer and rarer. People started to use the word "retired". Every year around his birthday we'd hear the music mags nod in his direction and say he's reported to have no interest in returning to the music industry. Through the disappointment, I tried to make myself be happy for him. Good for him, right?

Then, as I think all of us will remember, there came another shot heard around the world. This year for his birthday, he gave us a new single, literally out of the blue as far as all of us were concerned, and there will be a new album accompanying it in 41 days, from the current date, in the US.

I have tried many times to explain my fascination with David Bowie, and even more times to transfer it (oh, you poor kids I used to babysit). I have come to conclude that if you are innately a David Bowie super-fan, you know it right away, and no other artist will do for you exactly what he does for you. I believe you can learn to like him, but unless you have that weird chemical or emotional predisposition, you might never truly ever "get it".

That said, I am not against exposing everybody I meet to Bowie, or my love of Bowie. I plant songs and references like a devoted little Johnny Appleseed, hoping that someday, someone will say, "Who does this song? I really like it."

For your playlist: A-Side
1. "Heroes" (get the original album version, the long one) from the album by the same name
2. "Suffragette City" from The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars
3. "Modern Love" from Let's Dance
4. "Golden Years" from Station To Station

For your playlist: B-Side

1. "Rock & Roll Suicide" from The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars
2. "Somebody Up There Likes Me" from Young Americans
3. "Fall Dog Bombs the Moon" from Reality
4. "Fantastic Voyage" from Lodger (which, with Young Americans and Scary Monsters, might be my favorite album)

Check it out on Spotify at Eye on Your Soul: David Bowie

"At a certain age, an artist comes along and really captures you for the rest of your life, and you never let them go, and they can never disappoint you." For me, it's David Bowie. Who is yours?


Up next: a band that knows a little bit about astronomy, zoology, writing postcards, construction, and going insane. Guess who? ;)

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Location:Mesa,United States