Favorite Albums

Tom Ewing wrote an interesting take on the idea of a favorite album for Pitchfork, discussing it as a social phenomenon as much as a musical one. I can't identify with the way his favorite album changed a number of times; I've never been able to narrow it to one, but Fun House, Trout Mask Replica and Rocket to Russia have jointly held that position since I got to know each album. Still, his basic premise makes a lot of sense. Like its kissing cousin, the Desert Island Disc, the favorite album borders on a parlor game, a social form of one-upping and marking territory that says more about the person and his/her relationship to their social circle than it does about the albums.

As I read his piece, it occurred to me how rarely I hear such talk these days. I attributed how rarely I have to defend my choices to my community of friends, who either know or accept my choices without being appalled, or don't care about the question in the first place. I was a little surprised by Ewing's conclusion, which presented him in a similar situation:

A favorite album to me, and I think to a lot of other people, is a compromise-- between it and everything else I listen to; between my listening history and my enthusiasms now; between how I feel about a record and the conversations I might have about it. These days, nobody really asks me what my favorite album is, and so I'm not even sure I have one: If a Scary Monster roars in the forest and there is nobody there to hear it, is it really scary?

I don't know Ewing's age so I don't know if the lack of interest in this question is tied to age or something else - my suspicion being the latter. I think about the non-canonical choices in Marooned (I know, desert island discs, but close enough) and the conversation going on at Zoilus (see "I Miss the Tyrant") about Robert Christgau's nostalgia for the monoculture and wonder if this phenomenon (if it exists) is tied to that.

The Other Side of Coheed and Cambria

Unlike C and C, there's nothing confusing about Ted Nugent. Here's a press release that just crossed my desk:

Whether he’s unleashing a firestorm of guitar licks or speaking his mind politically and socially like no one else, TED NUGENT has never held anything back--and these two sides of TED come together potently on his new song, the unflinchingly titled (with all-caps) “I AM THE NRA.”

TED debuted the freedom-loving song at the recent annual NRA Convention May 17-18 in Louisville, Kentucky--which he described as “the ultimate Ted Nugent party,” with “more than 67,000 of my closest friends.” A sample of the track can be heard at TED’s website (www.tednugent.com) where the song can also be purchased and the digital download is available for sale via the NRA’s site (www.nra.org).

Lyrics like “If you hate tyrants and dictators and are ready to give freedom a whirl/Celebrate the NRA and the shot heard round the world” are merged with those bluesy, dirty and unforgiving Nuge licks. Recorded at David Crowder Studios, Waco, TX, “I AM THE NRA” is a manifesto that is meant to inspire. And Terrible Ted digs his heels in vocally with the kind of gusto that brings to mind his classic performances.

Says TED, recently re-elected for his fifth term on the Board of Directors of the NRA: “We debuted the ultimate soundtrack for freedom lovers everywhere with my new song ‘I AM THE NRA’ to thunderous applause and spontaneous dancing in the aisles. Real honest to God Motor City rock-n-roll goes perfectly with the spirit of gun lovers everywhere.”

Adds TED: “We know in our hearts and souls that God gave each of us a precious, equal, miraculous gift of life. And we also know, that if not for the formation and growth of this fundamental grassroots organization, individual American citizens would no longer have that US Constitutionally guaranteed God given right to keep and bear arms for the protection of this gift. Thank God for the NRA.”

Cam Edwards, host of "Cam and Company" on NRAnews.com and Sirius Satellite Radio, recently praised the song as “not just a rallying cry, it's a bombastic love letter to the Right to Keep and Bear Arms that could only come from Ted Nugent himself!"

“I AM THE NRA”

When I think of freedom,
I got my Bill Of Rights
US Constitution is my guiding light
Our founding fathers, they were not confused
I always celebrate self-evident truths
I AM THE NRA I AM THE NRA
I am we the people
I don’t need no OK
My pursuit of happiness will take me all the way
If you hate slavery as much as we all do
Come on join the fight, I'll tell you what we do
I AM THE NRA I AM THE NRA
If you hate tyrants and dictators and are ready to give freedom a whirl
Celebrate the NRA and the shot heard round the world
The shot heard round the world

Nugent recognizes no irony, no complexity and nothing that interferes with his pursuit of happiness, including your pursuit of happiness. I guess his focus on "me" means he and Claudio Sanchez aren't that different after all.

A Gateway

I just interviewed Dweezil Zappa to advance the Zappa Plays Zappa tour stop at the House of Blues June 11. Preparation for it led me to think about the role Zappa played in my musical development. As technical and musicianly as it was, I wonder if its idiosyncratic confrontation of the mainstream held open the door to punk rock for me.

As for Zappa Plays Zappa, the new two-DVD set is well-meant and well-performed, but it lacks a center. The the times I saw him, the smut jokes, absurdity, modern classical touches and guitar heroics were all expressions of a very distinctive personality. Its absence leaves the songs to stand as songs and little more.

Yay! More Coheed and Cambria News!

I can't imagine anyone gets more joy from Coheed and Cambria press releases than I do. They remind me of the pleasure I get going through a dollar store where I find knock-off versions of products made somewhere in Asia with tortured English text that is found poetry. The word combinations are often awe-inspiringly inexplicable. In a C and C press release, the writing is all grammatical using words I recognize, but at a basic level, I still don't understand what's going on. Here's part of the most recent:

Claudio Sanchez, the mastermind behind the rock band Coheed and Cambria, has debuted a new comic strip, called KILL AUDIO, on Myspace. The first four mini-issues in the series will also be included in Image Comics' collaborative graphic novel, PopGun, this summer.

"I really wanted the strip to be a fun read," admitted Sanchez, "so I decided to tie some elements of music and pop culture into a more satirical story than I've done in the past."

KILL AUDIO is a dark, comedic tale of a man growing annoyed with his own immortality. Along with a long list of eccentric companions and a bumbling, yet tenacious villain at his heels, he embarks on a quest to find his purpose in life.

Sanchez also announced that he will introduce a limited edition, 7" vinyl toy of KILL AUDIO at this year's San Diego Comic Con, July 24-27. It will then find its way into vinyl toyshops across the nation.

"The idea for the doll actually came first. I wanted to do a 'likeness doll', but not just a doll with a guitar in his hand. It had to have more personality and stand alone as a vinyl figure," Sanchez continued. "I played around with the name Kill Audio and ended up with a character who's not only being constantly killed himself, but later in the story finds hidden meaning in his namesake. The whole idea just snowballed from there. I couldn't be happier with the way it came together."

Also, today, MYSPACE will be premiering the video Coheed made themselves for the song "Gravemakers and Gunslingers," off their current record, No World for Tomorrow (Columbia).

"I played around with the name Kill Audio and ended up with a character who's not only being constantly killed himself, but later in the story finds hidden meaning in his namesake." I suppose he means "name" not "namesake," but beyond that, I don't understand anything. Or, more accurately, anything I get sounds crappy and egomaniacal, so much so that I can't be right. And even if it is just crappy and egomaniacal, the name Kill Audio sounds as random as the slogan on a tin of Japanese cat food.

Pet Peeve No. 591

Does anybody know what the S in 10:30 EST stands for? Evidently few publicists do. When one tells me in late May that I should call someone at that time, do they want me to make the call on Standard time, or do they mean 10:30 EDT - Eastern Daylight Time? Because 10:30 EST would be 9:30 - an hour earlier. I've confused so many publicists who only seem to recognize the E as relevant in that initial string that I now assume that they mean EDT, no matter what they write.

This post is so poindexter-ish I almost can't stand myself, but so it goes.

Escovedo for Your Xbox

Check the art at AlejandroEscovedo.com. I know there's an effort afoot to help him reach the market he deserves, but is making him look like a character from Grand Theft Auto IV really the best way?

When the Guesswork Begins

The Ponderosa Stomp works where other oldies shows don't because Dr. Ike gets bands that love the original records and original sounds enough to recreate the classic grooves, no matter how dated they might seem. At this year's Jazz Fest, the Dixie Cups demonstrated what more commonly happens. The band seemed to want to demonstrate that they're still relevant and contemporary - or maybe there was an entirely different motivation - but they were only as up to date as 1983 in terms of sound, song selection and groove. It wasn't satisfying as anything, and the nod toward modern times only made them seem older.

It's like they're guessing at "what's happening now," but missing badly. Tony Joe White's new Deep Cuts and Little Freddie King's Messin' Around tha House suffer for similar reasons. Both employ loops and remixes, but to no good purpose except to emulate "the now sound." The looped percussion doesn't improve on the grooves White and Swamp Man Loose hit, and King's remixed tracks aren't sufficiently extreme or propulsive. Ironically, both artists sound contemporary speaking in their own musical voices, which have an idiosyncrasy that doesn't date. It's never pretty when the guesswork begins.

An Obama Poem

From a series of process/text manipulation-oriented poems I'm working on:

11.
(emotional support)
Or, to make up for a politician's own failings.

Enraged mobs dissolved the stereotype of the grinning
and scare my wife when I'm not home.
He is a man who served his country
- we did that -
these several interrelated aspects
we pass on to our two precious daughters.
And ten community centers through
the new processes are now intellectually
to the point that it distorts reality.
And he does not bring up a specific issue.
He faced the bullies and the guns
standing on the front stoop.

I started this series when asked to make poems for an Obama rally. Now that I see how the process is working out, it's probably just as well that they didn't get done on time.

Everybody's Got a Message

At the New York Times Web site, there's an article on Bret Michaels (who's on tour promoting his new album, Rock My World, named for his VH-1 show's catchphrase) which contains this brilliant paragraph:

"But Mr. Michaels is thrilled to see his message get out to the 14-year-old daughters of Poison’s original 14-year-old fans. It is a form of vindication. Mr. Michaels believes that it is his resistance to chasing musical trends over the years that has made him hot again."

What message? That you need implants and lots of them? A half gallon of boobs just ain't enough? That there's hope for you and your personality disorder?

Is it Being Picky?

Today I saw an Aleve commercial in which a woman talks about getting "her Motown on" while Curtis Mayfield's "Move On Up" played. Evidently "Motown" has become such a brand name that all pop-oriented soul has now become "Motown," regardless of the label it was actually recorded for.