Showing posts with label music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label music. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 06, 2008

SECOND WAVE VIBRATIONS

If you're of a certain age and grew up with parents with no interest in rock and roll you probably first encountered The Beach Boys song "Good Vibrations" in an ad for Sunkist soda. Specifically, this ad:





The lyric is changed, the arrangement pretty lazy, and the harmonies aren't exactly soaring. Hearing "Good Vibrations" this way is a bit like seeing Hamlet on Betamax in a production in which Hamlet wears a Burger King t-shirt the entire time. Maybe that's why it took me a while to understand the song's genius.


So where did the commercial come from? I have a partial answer for that. I just wrote a review of the album Brotherman, a long lost soundtrack to a never-produced Chicago-set, '70s blaxploitation film with music performed by the unfortunately named Chicago soul act The Final Solution. It's due out in a bit on the great Chicago boutique label Numero Group which specializes in such oddities. Numero sends out updates every once in a while, and the most recent one linked to that YouTube clip above. Turns out it was The Final Solution, or at least members therof, providing the vocals.



I doubt they regarded it as their finest moment, either. In fact, the Brotherman album makes a pretty convincing case for their best moment never seeing the light of day until now. Here's a taste:



Love that guitar line, which was apparently going to be swapped out for a more polished guitar sound, strings, and horns. Maybe it's best it never got completed after all.

Tuesday, June 10, 2008


ROCKING FOR GOD

My review of a Larry Norman best-of collection Rebel Poet, Jukebox Balladeer ran today. It's the kind of longer music history piece I love writing and don't get to do as often as I like. (I've got another one, a review of Dennis Wilson's Pacific Ocean Blue running next week, too.) I'd never heard of Norman until he died at 60 earlier this year. He was billed as the "Father of Christian rock," which didn't much entice me. But his stuff is pretty incredible. He was a forceful, eccentric voice perfectly in tune with the confusing time of the early-'70s. I can't recommend the collection highly enough, or the material I've heard apart from that album. Here's one of many cuts warning of a loom apocalypse that he seemed to feel was close at hand:


Tuesday, April 15, 2008

WHEN HARRY MET GIGER

I was on Deborah Harry's Wikipedia page today for some work-related reason that I've already forgotten and got a bit sidetracked looking at her discography. Where I thought she released a bunch of solo albums, she's only put out seven over the last 27 years. The one that came out last year was her first since 1993's Debravation, an album I listened to all the way through back in my college radio days. It was, like Billy Idol's Cyberbunk, at least partly an attempt to fuse William Gibson's fiction with rock music. It didn't work, though Sonic Youth had better luck with at least one Gibson-inspired song years later.


I've always been curious about Harry's first solo album, Koo-Koo from 1981, which I know mainly because of the famous controversial cover by H.R. Giger:



Giger is the Swiss artist whose disturbing and/or erotic depictions of "biomechanics" found their most famous expression in his designs for Alien. What I didn't know was that Giger directed a pair of videos for the album filmed at his studio. The pairing is much more intriguing than it sounds. Here's Harry performing "Now I Know You Know":



And here she is performing "Backfired":



What's weirdest about this to my eyes, apart from the Gigerian body stocking, is how poorly it all fits together. Blondie was expert at taking trends in fashion and music and making them their own. Alone Harry doesn't do nearly as well. Both songs were written and produced by Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards of Chic, the go-to guys for late-disco pop sounds and Giger was both edgy and trendy at the time. It's all the right elements at exactly the right moment and it should have worked briliantly. And yet... Well, the evidence is above.


I'm less curious about Koo-Koo now.

Saturday, April 12, 2008


I MADE YOU A MUXTAPE?

Boing Boing had an item this week on a site called Muxtape.com that allows users to upload virtual mixtapes to the Internet to share with others. And that's it. It's remarkably simple and fairly unslick, which is in its own way pretty refreshing, even if users would currently seem to be limited to one muxtape at a time. Or at least it's that way now. A related blog keeps announcing new features. It seems like a site worth keeping an eye on.


Oh, and I totally made one just for you. Here it is. The title comes from the fact that this cold I've been dealing with all week took a bizarre turn yesterday that found a headache settling behind my left eye. I admire its specificity.

Thursday, March 13, 2008

The Awesome Pulp/Archie Mash-Up You Didn't Know You Were Waiting For





From Chris's Invincible Super Blog

Friday, March 07, 2008


MY FAVORITE BAND THIS WEEK: Los Campesinos

I've been laying off music reviewing a little this year, if not quite as thoroughly or publicly as Noel Murray. But I still have opinions and my opinion is that Cardiff's Los Campesinos are awesome. They're young. They're Welsh. They have a violin player. And they sound like they're having a lot of fun while making some unpredictable-but-not-fussy and rhythmically charged music. Noel turned me on to the band's debut EP last year. The forthcoming full-length Hold On Now Youngsters does not disappoint. Here's a great track, that's not even the best on the album:



Los Campesinos: "We Are All Accelerated Readers"

Thursday, January 24, 2008


PERMANENT RECORDS REMOTE: The Feelies' The Good Earth (1986)

We put our Permanent Records feature on hiatus over at The A.V. Club so of course I find an album I have to write about. The feature will probably be back in some form later on, but I need to say some words about The Feelies' The Good Earth, the New Jersey band's second album. Released in 1986, it followed their debut Crazy Rhythms by six years. Crazy Rhythms is often, and rightly, cited as an influential albums. It jittery, post-punk jangle can be heard in countless subsequent bands from '80s college rock on. But it's The Good Earth that I love. I parted it with it in a cash-strapped CD purge somewhere between high school and gainful employment. I don't know how I could ever have let it go. It's fallen out of print in subsequent years but thanks to eBay and a part-time wholesaler in Thailand I now own a copy again.


R.E.M. was among the bands wearing out their copies of Crazy Rhythms and Peter Buck repaid the favor by producing The Good Earth. The band had a slightly different line-up by then and a slightly different sound. R.E.M. had listened to them and clearly they'd listened back. The Good Earth mixes the jangle and countryside spirituality of early R.E.M. with a Velvet Underground drone but the sound is all its own. Here's a favorite track:



Always a cult favorite, never a popular success, The Feelies signed to Warner Brothers, put out two more albums, then called it a day. I don't have those but I suspect eBay does. But I might wait. The Good Earth is pretty much all I want to listen to right now anyway.

Sunday, September 30, 2007

CD SHELVES FOR SALE

If you've ever been to my current place, or any place I've ever lived, you've probably noticed that it's overrun with media. It's the best fringe benefit of my job that a lot of books, CDs, and DVDs float my way for free. But the cumulative effect of doing this for a few years is that the room disappears fast. Factor in that I spent years prior to turning pro squandering my paycheck on media and a personality that gets sentimentally attached to objects and you're left with, well, a mess. And given that our place, while spacious, is still very much a big city condo something had to give. For the last couple of weeks, it's been giving. Stevie and I did a large book and DVD purge last weekend that left us with a little more pocket money and still way too many books and DVDs. For the past few days I've been packing up my CDs.


I know people, people who are wildly enthusiastic about music, who have taken advantage of the glorious age of digital music we're now living to sell their CDs. I can't do that. I just can't. I've been building my collection since I was 16 and can still tell you the first four CDs I bought and when I bought them. (First: Green by R.E.M., purchased during a marching band trip on the first week of its release in 1988 before I owned a CD player.)


I get attached. I can remember poring over liner notes for albums and staring at covers. I once saw an interview Bryan Ferry where he complained that CD listeners lacked the "tactile" relationship with their music that vinyl fans enjoyed. If he only knew what was coming. I'm pretty sure I'm from the last generation to grow up touching music. But I don't really touch it anymore. I rip, peruse the liner notes, and go. I still look at the covers, but it's usually when they appear in the corner of my screen.


I don't really miss playing CDs, to tell the truth. I love the digital age. I listen to music just as deeply and more broadly than ever. I take my iPod with me everywhere. My laptop (and an external hard drive) allow me to keep a considerable library at my fingertips and a large hard drive at home houses a collection in excess of 200GB. That said, I still love my CDs. And packing them up hasn't been easy. I kept hitting little sentimental trapdoors. I mean, I can remember a couple of weeks in December of 1998 when the Townes Van Zandt album High And Low And In Between felt like the closest friend I had.


Nonetheless, they have to make room. So, apart from a few we listen to in the car on a regular basis, down to the basement they go, secure in the finest plastic tubs Target stocks. I guess I could get rid of them, but I keep thinking about the dream house I'll maybe own down the line, one with a wall of shelves for all my CDs that my as-yet-still-imaginary kids, who will never rebel against their dad's great taste in music, will be able to look at, and listen to, and touch.

Tuesday, April 03, 2007


ANALOG TO DIGITAL: THE OTHER PARTON

I spent some time this weekend browsing a record store I'd previously underrated--Lincoln Square's Laurie's Planet Of Sound--while hanging out with some old college friends. Browsing the country section I came across two albums by Stella Parton, the younger sister I never knew Dolly Parton had. Turns out she had a low-key country career in the late-'70s, scoring a couple of country hits but never quite emerging from her sister's shadow despite an appearance on The Dukes Of Hazzard. Today she enjoys a gospel career, which you can read all about at her website.


I Want To Hold You In My Dreams is her first non-gospel album and it's not bad, either. Released on her own Country Soul label, it features a number of original compositions sung in a pleasant voice that sounds more than a little like her sisters. And that's probably why I never heard of Stella Parton. There's plenty here to like but nothing that her sister doesn't do better. (And am I wrong or is that Dolly in the background on some of these songs?)


But, putting Dolly aside, this is worth a listen. The title track--the hit--is achingly sincere (I'm a sucker for a good spoken-word passage) and there's an odd little song about Olivia Newton John called "Ode To Olivia," defending her against country purists who didn't like the Australian's inroads into "their" music. And you have to have respect for anyone who cuts a song called "Long Legged Truck Drivers," a raucous declaration of tha narrator's inability not to give it up for any trucker that passes her way.




Monday, April 02, 2007



WHAT HATH GOD WROUGHT? (AMBIENT MIX)
This might be the stupidest way I've ever spent half an hour. I'm teaching myself to use GarageBand while putting together a draft of a possible podcast. This, of course, yielded a remix of Aphex Twin's ambient classic "Cliffs" with soundclips from The Reaping, a movie I want to see for all the wrong reasons. Enjoy?

Wednesday, March 21, 2007


THE QUOTABLE SCREAMIN' JAY HAWKINS

I'm currently reading Gerri Hirshey's Nowhere To Run: The Story Of Soul Music. It's good, too, and kind of sad so far. Published in the early-'80s, it draws heavily on conversations with soul giants who were, by and large, not doing so well in the post-disco era. But I digress. Here's a great quote about soul music from Screamin' Jay Hawkins, interviewed by Hirshey shortly after Hawkins opened for the Rolling Stones:

"Now I never sung that stuff, but I like it, what they call soul. That stuff got heaven and hell in it." He laughs. "Me I guess you have to say I spent most o my time on the dark end of the street."

Thursday, March 15, 2007


ANALOG TO DIGITAL: DUETS, WHAT ARE THEY GOOD FOR?

Edwin Starr and Blinky, Just We Two (1969)

I'd never heard of this album before spotting it at Reckless Records in Chicago but who could resist that cover? This was an album Edwin Starr recorded after "Agent Double-O-Soul" but before "War," working with another new Motown signing, an L.A. preacher's daughter named Blinky. It's a pretty inspired pairing, too. Starr's a belter, and like The Four Tops' Levi Stubbs he pushes the Funk Brothers outside the assembly-line comfort zone. (James Jamerson's bass work is worth the price alone.) Blinky's clearly someone's who grew up listening to gospel and pop and decided she didn't have to choose between them.


Starr would go one to release "War" the next year, one of the few hit songs from the classic Motown era that wears thin over time, especially since he displays a much greater range here than that song's one-note grunting. You won't hear it on too much after "War" either, certainly not on the dreadful disco hit "H.A.P.P.Y. Radio." And Blinky? She apparently kept recording material that never saw the light of day then went on to open for Sammy Davis Jr. before disappearing from the scene. Listening to this it's hard to understand why.


When I started this I decided only to post from albums that aren't available on CD, not realizing that this had come out, in a limited edition, on Hip-O's online-only arm Hip-O select (a.k.a. The site that could eat up the Phipps family fortune if I bought everything from it I liked, like those big Motown singles collections and the James Brown singles series). So, in the interest of fairness, here's a link, and two of the album's best tracks. Dig the way Starr calls Blinky out by name on "I'll Understand." He almost makes the ridiculous name sound sexy.



Thursday, March 08, 2007


ANALOG TO DIGITAL: PICKING THE HITS

Anyone who's spent any time in used record stores—and I'm speaking here as someone who's logged plenty of hours in them—knows that a few things are always true:

1) They all smell the same
2) They're always poorly lit
3) There's always plenty of Herb Alpert and Chet Atkins albums laying around for cheap.


I once decorated a small niche of an especially crappy apartment with copies of Alpert's Whipped Cream And Other Delights, but I'd never spent much time with Atkins until recently. Atkins ran RCA's Nashville division for years, pioneering the crossover "Nashville sound" that would help define country music in the '60s. Atkins also cut a lot of albums on his own, usually two or three a year. He'd typically lay down rhythm tracks at RCA's famed Studio B, a facility he'd put on the map, and record the leads at his home studio.


Atkins recorded many instrumental versions of contemporary hits, but even the renditions that border on easy-listening kitsch are usually redeemed by his distinctive playing. I picked up Solid Gold '69 in part because I simply couldn't imagine Atkins' versions of "Son Of A Preacher Man" or "Aquarius" and in part because I never pass up any rendition of "Hey Jude." But the standout tracks are the sensitive readings of "Both Sides Now" and "Blackbird" I've posted below.


One more thing: For some reason Donovan does the liner notes. There aren't any Donovan songs on it and if he appears on it somewhere, it eluded me. But the note is worth reproducing verbatim:

chet paul's tunes sensitive love for love young brownskin harp ear good for nice sounds but of fuzz great face beautiful guitar fondling country smooth like strings and cream joni's tune lovely classical box rewind once upon a time irish music went west and fiddles and jest country music came from the marriage of men's cultures under new suns and now c & w is very popular in ireland... and chet is very popular in america and i thank him for playing "our" new tune so beautifully. -- Donovan


Well said.



Thursday, March 01, 2007


ANALOG TO DIGITAL: THE GREAT TWIN CITIES FUNK POP BAND THAT WASN'T

(First: Sorry so long between posts. The next couple of days should be better. In the meantime, here's some more from my continuing efforts to transfer some vinyl music to MP3s.)


When Sinead O'Connor had a hit with "Nothing Compares 2 U," articles about her always touched on a few points:
1) She's bald
2) She's odd
3) U2 helped her get her start
4) She's Irish
5) Prince wrote it


But Prince didn't write it for O'Connor. He wrote it for The Family, might've-been-huge-but-wasn't Paisley Park act consisting of three refugees from the recently disbanded Time (St. Paul Peterson, Jellybean Johnson, and percussionist/hype man Jerome Benton), saxophonist/vocalist Eric Leeds, and Susannah Melvoin, twin sister of The Revolution's Wendy Melvoin.


They released one album in 1985, but even by the time I got curious about hearing the original version of "Nothing Compares 2 U" and was already buying up every Prince b-side I could get my hands on, it was hard to find. Was it some lost treasure of Minneapolis funk? I finally had my question answered recently when I found a vinyl copy for $5.99. Answer: No.


But it's not bad either, as these two tracks suggest. "Screams Of Passion" was the single and while I'm not going to say that this version of "Nothing" surpasses O'Connor's or the version Prince threw on his greatest hits collection. But it's worth hearing anyway.





P.S. The new embedded file-sharing system comes via a free site called Divshare, which I recommend.

Monday, February 19, 2007


JERRY LEE LEWIS: LIVE AT THE FRENCH LICK RESORT AND CASINO, FRENCH LICK, INDIANA

I've regretted going to my share of concerts over the years, and sometimes not even because they're bad. There's a Tortoise show that stands out as something that would be a truly memorable experience if the band was playing in your living room as you drifted off to enjoy a nice nap. But I've never once regretted turning out for one of the old guys. One of my favorite concert memories ever is seeing Johnny Cash at the Glastonbury Festival in 1994. This was around the same time the first American Recordings album came out. He was that year's token old-timer and I don't think he expected the reception he got. It's not like he ever stopped touring, but I don't think he'd ever played to a sea of black-clad, pierced English youth who could sing along to every song. And I mean every song. Not just "Ring Of Fire" but "Ghost Riders In The Sky," too.


On Saturday night Stevie and I saw Jerry Lee Lewis, like Cash another member of the Million Dollar Quartet. The last one, actually. He even named his last album Last Man Standing and put a picture of himself with Cash, Elvis, and Carl Perkins inside. I've been on a big Jerry Lee kick ever since writing the (apparently still in the editing process) article on Memphis music movies and picking up the aforementioned Last Man Standing. (A side note: It's actually quite good, unlike most of the oldsters-duet-with-younger-stars albums. Of particular note: A duet with Keith Richards called "That Kind Of Fool" on which they lament they were never the kind of fools who could just have one drink and go home to their wives.)


I'll spare you the harrowing ordeal of getting there via Google Maps directions that took us through the back roads of a national forest where no house is apparently complete unless there's half an automobile or a broken stove on the lawn and mention only in passing that southern Indiana is (otherwise) really pretty to get to the show. Once again: No regrets. Lewis' long-serving band warmed up the show with a handful of oldies which the drunken louts behind us dimissed is "bullshit" that quickly got downgraded to "third rate bullshit." It wasn't, but it wasn't star time either. That came when Lewis ambled out, explained that his plane had been rerouted and that he hadn't had time to change then launched into "Roll Over Beethoven." His voice was problematic on some songs, in fine form on others but the playng remained, as always, an inimitable force of nature. And, despite the environment--which offered excellent acoustics but little else in the way of atmosphere--it felt like a Jerry Lee Lewis show. The drunken louts wandered up to the front of the stage to do some dancing, prompting security to escort them to one side, but not before one of them engaged in some spirited finger-pointing in Lewis' direction and Lewis returned the favor. Later Lewis complained about how it wasn't a rock and roll show if people could tell you how to dance and when to dance. This was shortly before a fight broke out (also involving one of the louts.) For a good 90 seconds or so it was more Memphis roadhouse than sterile casino.


One particular highlight was Charlie Rich's "Don't Put No Headstone On My Grave," which Lewis played as a country lament that turned into rockabilly then back again. These are the official words:
"Don't put no headstone on my grave,
All my life I've been a slave,
Want the whole wide world to know,
That I'm the man that loved you so"
For some reason I heard "loved you so" as "loved his soul." I could be wrong. But I do know he finished the song by slamming the cover of the piano keys against the piano and then looking out at the audience in defiance of something. It might have been death or maybe just the woman he took to task for putting her fingers in her ears with the words, "And people say I'm crazy."


As I was hoping, he also did his rendition of "Over The Rainbow," which just kills me. And he closed, of course, "With Great Balls Of Fire" and "Whole Lotta Shaking Going On." For the final passages of "Shaking" he rose, kicked over the piano bench, and played standing up. There was great effort involved in every part of that action and to close the show he simply wandered off and let the band play the final notes. But the spirit behind the gesture was unmistakable. One more rock and roll show down and The Killer was off to join the night, even if now it was at a slower pace.


Below's the setlist. Both it and the photo above come via the thorough European fansite The Jerry Lee Lewis Start Page.


1) Roll Over Beethoven
2) Over The Rainbow
3) Sweet Little Sixteen
4) Memphis, Tennessee
5) Before The Night Is Over
6) She Even Woke Me Up To Say Goodbye
7) Why You Been Gone So Long
8) Don't Put No Headstone On My Grave
9) I Dont Want To Be Lonely Tonight
10) You Win Again
11) Hadacol Boogie
12) Great Balls Of Fire
13) Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On

Tuesday, January 23, 2007


MY DAY: JANUARY 23, 2007


Because when there's nothing else to write about, there's always today.


• Went to the gym and finally gave the new Arcade Fire album a good lisen. Oh. Yes.
• Went to work and figured out some assignments between calls. Also reviewed the new Clap Your Hands Say Yeah album and learned that I actually didn't have crummy MP3 files. It really sounds like that.
• Talked to a publicist who informed us that the publicist of a famous actor had turned us down for an interview with no explanation. It was a real WTF moment. If I had to pick an actor that I knew everyone on staff considered one of their favorite actors it would be this guy. Again, WTF?
• Pulled the trigger on some iTunes tracks that had been piling up in my shopping cart, mostly Nas songs from those in-between-years recommended by Nathan and some Neptunes-produced songs I don't have already.
• I'm now watching the State Of The Union address. Is Obama sleeping? And if he is, will that kill his presidential run?

Wednesday, January 17, 2007


MY DAY: JANUARY 17, 2007

Because when there's nothing else to write about, there's always today.

• Some unavoidable delays around the house meant I got to catch the beginning of Regis And Kelly. Regis was blown away by Tony Danza's turn in The Producers. Kelly thought the American Idol judges were way too hard on the poor kid who sang and juggled.
• Wrote a review of The Good, The Bad & The Queen, Damon Albarn's new quasi-supegroup with Paul Simonon of The Clash, Tony Allen from Fela Kuti's band, and Simon Tong of The Verve. Yawn.
• Wrote my contributions to a piece I'm co-writing with Noel that's, in part, about great bands destined never to make the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame. I'm now listening to Hüsker Dü. These are related.
• Came home to see how the tortilla soup I made in the slow cooker turned out. Spicy.
• Made the unfortunate discovery that doing an image search for Tony Danza with "safe search" turned off yields some unfortunate results. Try it!

Sunday, January 07, 2007


MEMPHIS MUSIC MOVIES: GREAT BALLS OF FIRE! (1989)
DIRECTOR: JIM MCBRIDE

Nick Tosches wrote an amazing biography--of a sort--of Jerry Lee Lewis called Helfire that cast Lewis' life in terms of a Faulknerian drama between good and evil and imagined in the strictest Pentecostal terms. If Jim McBride ever read it before making Great Balls Of Fire! he must have decided to take everything in the opposite direction. Balls' greatest debt belongs to Frank Tashlin, the animator-turned-director who best known for working with that other Jerry Lewis. Tashlin made cartoonish, candy-colored satires in the 1950s and his influence is all over this movie. There's a great scene that falls where most biopics would inset a montage of swirling newspapers and screaming fans to symbolize their subject's ascent to fame. Instead, Lewis, as played by Dennis Quaid, rides through town, cheered along the way by everyone from high school students, to courthouse protestors to cops. Everyone loves Jerry Lee! Later, the sequence is reversed, and all those one-time fans shun him. It's silly, but much of the movie treads the line between knowing camp and, well, just plain camp. In the end it doesn't work out, but it's a valiant effort that's better than most reviews would suggest.


McBride has tried to make a movie with all the cartoonish energy and outsized sexuality of a Jerry Lee Lewis song and sometime he gets there, largely thanks to a daring performance from Dennis Quaid, drawing his inspiration from Huckleberry Hound when he's not channeling Lewis. Here the Ferriday Fireball is played an unreflective bumpkin driven by the power of his music and torn between serving god (as per the wishes of cousin Jimmy Swaggart, played by Alec Baldwin) and playing rock and roll. But really he's not torn enough. Anyone who's ever heard the amazing conversation between Lewis and Sam Phillips before recording "Great Balls Of Fire"--in which Lewis frets over playing "the devil's music," Phillips replies that music can save souls and Lewis replies, "How can the devil save souls?... I have the devil in me. If I didn't I'd be a Christian"--knows Lewis was tormented by the things that gave him joy. But here the dark side's not dark enough and while Balls gets a lot of the energy that made Lewis a star, it can't go much deeper. It ends with Lewis storming out of church, choosing independence over conformity. That was one of the choices he had to make, but far from the only one. McBride made Balls with Lewis' cooperation. (He recorded his songs for Quaid to lip synch.) The portrait of an innocent undone by stuffy '50s morality must have made it an easy sell.


Still, there's plenty to like here. Quaid's romance of his 13-year-old cousin (a giggly Winona Ryder who, in another Tashlin-esque sequence furnishes their new home by going to a store and literally throwing money around) is played for creepy, funny laughs. ("You're all woman to Jerry Lee!") The production design is theme park-perfect and there's a great sequence in which Sam Phillips listens to Lewis' recording of "Crazy Arms," likes it, presses it, runs it down to Dewey Phillips at WHBQ, and has the malt girls swooning before the night is through. The city was open that way then and the world was ready to listen.


MEMPHIS MUSIC MOVIES: HUSTLE AND FLOW (2005)
DIRECTOR: CRAIG BREWER

I'm going to be writing about some movies with Memphis music in them for a freelance piece I'm preparing so these entries may read as a little notebook-y. Feel free to skip if you're so inclined.

When I first conceived this piece on Memphis music movies a completely forgot about Hustle And Flow. I was thinking of old school Memphis blues, country, soul, and rock and roll and forgetting that new music is still getting made there. I blame the autumnal tone of 40 Shades Of Blue and the nostalgia of the unsatisfying doc Only The Strong Survive (which I'll also be writing about. They spend their time driving past the ruins of the old music shrines and never acknowledge that there might be music bubbling up from those ruins? Is there a style of music made famous in Memphis that didn't work its way up from the economic bottom?


That's certainly the vision present by H&F, which impressed me more this time around than last. I loved the Terrence Howard performance but found the underdog-against-the-odds story a little pat. Still do, but it worked for me this time. Maybe it's because this time it played more like a superior b-movie than a failed arthouse movie. But I digress...


H&F works well as a companion piece to 40 Shades. Where Rip Torn plays a man whose found the limits of what music can provide him--spiritually if not financially--Howard plays a guy who's just finding out where music can take him. And where it can take him as a lot more to do with his soul than his wallet. From an early scene in which Howard cries listening to a spiritual in church to a finale that leaves him not on top but somewhere a few notches up from where he was before, it's much more about finding oneself as an artist and a human being than as a commercial success. In fact, commercial success, as embodied by Ludacris' character Skinny Black--a Memphis born rapper who's found great success--is treated with no small amount of suspicion. Early on, Howard looks at the cover of a Skinny Black CD as if he's not sure what about him bugs him. By the time they meet, he's figured it out. He gets Black's attention with weed and holds it with the words "What the fuck happened to you?" He explains that Memphis misses him and delivers an impassioned monologue about how, when the present civilization crumbled arcehologists would sort through the rubble of New York and Paris but, "If a nigga wanted to know about me, wanted to know about Memphis, all they gotta do is find your first underground tape.”


A city can be defined by music but it can also be explained by it. James Joyce wrote that he hoped Dublin, if destroyed, could be reconstructed brick by brick from his descriptions in Ulysses. But I don't think that's why he wrote the book and I don't think that's why Howard loves that tape so much. Sometimes art justifies who we are by explaining to the world how we lived and why we did the things we did, even when those things pained us, which is something that D.J. Qualls touches on in another monologue:

The thing is, and I believe this man, rap is coming back home to the south. This is where it all began: Heavy percussion, repetitive hooks, sexually suggestive lyics… It’s all blues, brother. “Back Door Man” to “Back Dat Ass Up,” it’s all about pain and pussy and making’ music man. With simple tools. By any means necessary. You’ve got to get what you’ve got to say out. Because you’ve got to. Every man, you know what I’m sayin’?... Has the right, the goddamn right, to contribute a verse.

He's tying Howard's "It's Hard Out There For Pimp" lament to the same tradition as Furry Lewis. The song just keeps changing shape and anyone who feels that Memphis' contributions belong in the past just isn't looking hard enough.

Thursday, January 04, 2007


MY DAY: JANUARY 4, 2006
Because when there's nothing else to write about, there's always today.
• Between a minor head cold and the nasty weather it's been hard to get out of bed lately and today was no exception.
• Stopped at Whole Foods for a muffin on the way in to work. The usual homeless guy who calls me "big guy" was not there.
• Heard a rumor from Stevie, who heard it from someone else, who heard it from a "reliable source" that Dick Cheney would soon be stepping down to be replaced by Condoleeza Rice. I'm putting this here just so I can brag about it later if it comes true.
• Listened to the new Shins album. It did not, as Zach Braff promised, change my life. Yet. But I've listened to it more than once now so we'll see.
• Finished up the bulk of my posting for Slate. I'm sorry to see it end. I just hope I held my own.
• Ate dinner alone at Big Bowl and read Rob Sheffield's book Love Is A Mixtape. I was alone because I had to go to a night screening of Smokin' Aces. Not so smokin'.