I had my first Travel Anxiety Dream last night.

Every time I travel overseas I have one or two Travel Anxiety Dreams (TADs) right before my flight. Usually, it is same dream every time.  That dream is one where I am at the airport, ready to board the flight, and I realize that I do not have my passport.  No flight for me!

But, last night, I had a new and different TAD.  I am extremely excited about finally visiting Abbey Road Studios while we are in London, and I guess -- after last night -- I am a little anxious about it, as well.

In my dream last night, I was by myself in the right neighborhood, St John's Wood, and I had a reliable map that told me where the studio and the famous crosswalk were.  But as I approached my destination I realized that the crosswalk and the studio were not where they should be. Instead I was suddenly in a very long, wide, and exquisite Belle Époque hotel hallway that was covered in beautiful gold from floor to ceiling.  The ceiling was beautiful, and had long rows of window panes that threw light on the hall.  As I walked up and down this beautiful hallway, I would constantly refer to my map to see where the crosswalk was.  The map told the tale that I was at my destination, but I obviously was not, and I began to get worried.  

Next, I left the beautiful hotel and came across a gorgeous dog legged outdoor lawn that stretched on for blocks.  The map said this was the Mall of Great Moves.  And there were giant chessboards set up on the mall with giant chess pieces, each setting an example of famous chess moves throughout history.  These boards and the mall seemed to stretch on forever.  Finally, when I walked the entire mall, the map said I had reached the crosswalk.  But, I was back in the hotel hallway.  I noticed a little maintenance room at the end of the hall.  The door was partially open.  I went in there, and finally saw the famous Abbey Road Studios outer wall, all covered in its adoring Beatles graffiti.  But, I could not get to the wall because there was a large metal grated door between me and the studio.  The door was locked.  So I could finally see -- barely-- the studio but could not go there.  I woke up.  I never did find the crosswalk.  

************

Which brings me to the point of how odd it must be to work at Abbey Road Studios, knowing that every single day you go to work there will be grown adults, right outside, acting like silly joyful children, writing mash notes on the studio walls, and furiously trying to set up photographs of folks crossing a very busy street over a nondescript 'zebra' crosswalk whilst Londoners just try to do their thing. 

I think it is a real testament to the absolute brilliance and magic of the Beatles that they could make so many regular folks feel so blissfully childlike again, and act on those beautiful childlike wishes.  It is an inadvertent Magical Performance Art installation that plays every day of the year.  

How flipping beautiful is that.

Mwah, ...

Happy birthday, John!

John Lennon would have been seventy-three today.

This is one of the most criminally underrated songs of not just the Beatles catalogue, but rock music, period. It is about the most grown-up, and adult way at looking at romantic love in a rock song format that you will ever come across.  Absolute genius.  He was twenty-four going on twenty-five when he wrote it.

"Girl"

Is there anybody going to listen to my story

All about the girl who came to stay?

She's the kind of girl you want so much

It makes you sorry

Still, you don't regret a single day

Ah girl

Girl

When I think of all the times I've tried so hard to leave her

She will turn to me and start to cry

And she promises the earth to me

And I believe her

After all this times I don't know why

Ah, girl

Girl

She's the kind of girl who puts you down

When friends are there, you feel a fool

When you say she's looking good

She acts as if it's understood

She's cool, cool, cool, cool

Girl

Girl

Was she told when she was young that pain

Would lead to pleasure?

Did she understand it when they said

That a man must break his back to earn

His day of leisure?

Will she still believe it when he's dead?

Ah girl

Girl

Girl

Ah girl

Girl

Girl

xxxoooxxx,

Ardent

Happy Friday everyone!

This is so stunning and beautiful.

Thanks to Matthew L, Marcus M, and the blog Dangerous Minds for pointing this to my direction.  And, to Josiv5 for pulling it from Beatles Rock Band and putting it together.

Another Woman Michael Loves, Astrid Kirchherr

Astrid Kirchherr and Stuart Sutcliffe

I had not even realized that over this past weekend in which I had been watching Martin Scorsese's very fine documentary, George Harrison: Living in the Material World, that it was right around the time of George's birthday, which is today.  Happy birthday George:

Ms Kirchherr is such a lovely, warm, and humble soul, that I can not help but to love her.  She has never complained or fought about the rights to her photographs of the Beatles in Hamburg, though they are without question some of the finest rock photographs in the (short) history of that genre, and could have made her an extremely wealthy person.  Her attitude now is as it always been, that she did not mind the world using those photographs, because they were just pictures of her friends, and meant to be shared with an entire globe that thinks of itself, still today, as "friends" with The Beatles.

She also is so humble as to never take claim for inventing the "Beatles haircut", which she rightly claims was a style already popular amongst German boys at that time in the early sixties.  But, Ms Kirchherr was the first person to cut Stuart Sutcliffe's hair in that style, and the other Beatles at that time followed suit by having one of her friends, Jürgen Vollmer, cut their hair in the same fashion in Paris.

In fact, just the Beatles' days in Hamburg are enough to write a truly great novel, although one which many might find unbelievable, even if you reassured them that it all really happened.

Astrid and Stuart Sutcliffe, who had just quit The Beatles to become a full-time painter, were engaged to be wed, but Sutcliffe suffered an aneurysm and died en route to hospital, the young Ms Kirchherr with him, holding his hand as he passed.

But, she has never been a bitter or jaded person.  Or even ever tried to carpetbag on the group's subsequent unheard of (and perhaps will never see the like of happening again) monumentally massive success.

A truly wonderful person.

One of the cameras Ms Kirchherr used.

Ardent

What a phenomenal document

This recording is.  The girls have trouble clapping on the right beat, and The Beatles, themselves, seem to be gobsmacked at the insane reaction they are getting.  The climax seems to occur whenever they hit that "Meeee" note.

The song was the b-side to She Loves You, and Lennon and McCartney are actually poking fun at themselves after the "Yeah yeah yeah" fusillade of the a-side with sardonic Northern accented "Oh yeah"s for the flip.

Honestly, we may never see anything quite like this again, in regards to adoration for a musical group or artist.  It was a perfect storm that reached the ultimate critical mass.  So big, in fact, as to carry numerous other groups and artists on their coattails.

Stunning.











Ardent

Thanks to everyone who came to my birthday party last night

And I hope you all had as wonderful a time as I did.

(This is kind of like that great scene in Welcome to the Dollhouse.  Unfortunately, there is no video of that on YouTube, so, I'll give you something else instead from that sick, suburban masterpiece.  Solondz' Jersey is very different from the Jersey plastered all over our teevees these days.)

And thanks to my wonderful Wife, Renee, who made the party possible, and made such fabulous food and Martinis.

And thanks to Meghan for helping Renee with the food and drinks and being such fantastic company.

And thanks to Nick C and the Ladies for the candy and presents.

Hoo-ray! It is my birthdaie, and I am so blessed to have so many wonderful friends!

Now, here are a bunch of videos and songs:

Thanks again, I love you all,
Mwah, ... 

Here are the fabulous

Jazz Butcher Conspiracy very hard at work:  In Munchen.





(Why do rock stars chew gum at the mic? Even those that are most prob v plied w/ drink?)










Lennon chewed gum in the Beatlemania days when he weren't drunk nor stoned, at all.  He were just scared.  Perhaps, one of the tests of truly great art:  Those that are the real Titans must feel the most pain and insecurity to achieve those Halcyon Heights.

There must have

Been reasons why I did not see The Social Network in a theater but I cannot recall them now.

Anyhoo, I saw it over this past weekend.  The movie is great, the first scene is amazing.  The Howard Hawks-like speed w/ which characters speak is invigorating and thrilling to watch.  The script by Aaron Sorkin is smart, spiked w/ sour wit, and still always moves the story forward.  There are good performances all over the screen but my favorites are Andrew Garfield, Armie Hammer (as the Winklevoss twins), & Rashida Jones.

In fact, my favorite storyline in The Social Network is that of the "Winklevi".  I love how they are set up as WASP Supermen.  What is the quote, "I am 6' 5", 220 pounds and there are two of me"? The twins are uber-privileged, part of a dwindling old-money American aristocracy, who are first shown lapping their crew competition and then towering over a gawky, socially awkward Zuckerberg.  We never see the twins win anything again.  They always come up short, yet try to remain gentlemen.  Cameron Winklevoss finally snaps when his Harvard crew loses the big race in England.  There is something so correct and perfect and honest and lovable about the twins that goes against most traditional class-struggle movies or arcs, whathaveyou.

I am not rooting for Zuckerberg in this film.  It is brilliant that Sorkin found this class-turnabout in this Facebook story.  Zuckerberg is not likeable.  He is so socially awkward, so narcissistic, so loathesome, so condescending, etc, ... My skin crawls when Eisenberg asks Rashida Jones' lawyer out for dinner.  And the scene where Zuckerberg keeps trying to pull his ex-girlfriend away from her friends,  to "talk alone, for a minute" (everyone in this splendid script is seeking a private conversation at one point or another, yet so many are connected to this extremely non-private social network creation), well, folks, I have been there before and it is chilling and uncomfortable to watch.   Rooney Mara as Erica plants her feet firmly in the ground and tells him off.  Good for her.

I am not going to ruin the ending.  It is brilliant like the rest of the film.  But everybody involved here seems to have nailed it.  It had to be perfect to succeed and that is v dangerous territory to be playing around in.  The Citizen Kane references are correct.  Not in any way related to the film itself re how it looks, how it was shot, etc, ... but that they took on a media giant by telling his story as a big-budget Hollywood entertainment (and they weren't v nice to their "hero".)  People as talented as Sorkin and David Fincher had to be anxious and excited to tackle this remarkable real-life, real-time story:  One of the most socially awkward, icky guys around, who has  no friends at all creates frickin' Facebook.  Sorkin & Fincher dived in and nailed it.  Good for them.  


Actually, now that I think about it, there may be another way this film is like Kane.  There will be arguments over the decades about who was more integral to The Social Network, Sorkin, the screenwriter, or Fincher, the director.  Personally, I am in the Sorkin camp at this early juncture.  Just like I am in the Kael/Mankiewicz/Toland camp re Kane.

Winklevi & Zuckerberg.

P.S.  One more thing, it was so lovely to hear a real Beatles song in a movie.  I am sure they had a pay a mint but it was worth it.

So did you hear the one about

The Minnesota state Rep (R) who was hanging out in front of Planned Parenthood, armed?


Let no one be confused.  This Republican yahoo, who represents part of Bachmann's district for the state, was most definitely not checking on his girlfriend.  This idiot is going through a divorce and anybody who has watched Lifetime Movie Network, American Justice, or City Confidential knows what happens when the D word is mentioned.  Luckily, this time, nothing happened.  And the police and the clinic can keep an eye out for this sad, repressed loser, ahem, I mean public servant.  


Speaking of public servants, at least real public servants:  George Miller (D) shopped at my store yesterday.  He was checking out the Pinot Noir racks.  I asked him if he needed any help and he v politely said, No.  He bought a bottle of Decoy Pinot Noir (and his cart was quite full, he got a turkey, too.)  I wanted to tell him how I saw him in Casino Jack and how much I appreciate his service but I lost my nerve and just let him go.  


When I got home I told Renee, We had a celebrity today! She sed, So did we! But Renee won.  Her celebrity at San Rafael was this this guy.  


But, how appropriate is it that on the day I see George Miller, one of the heroes of Casino Jack, that one of the villains of that film gets convicted by a Texas jury! I know, I know:  here come a million appeals, DeLay will never see jail time, etc, ... but, still.  

Dom Beausejour Chinon

"James is from the Valley, he'd probably like Chablis."

• Well, I have not seen Nowhere Boy yet but I did watch Lennon Naked.  It stunk.  Renee particularly hated it.  My God, Chris Eccleston, was way way way too old for the role to begin with.  And the whole thing was an absolute mess in terms of storytelling, reaching way too far for a eighty-five minute film.  Was it a film about Lennon's strained relationship w/ his da? Was it about Lennon and Brian Epstein? Was it to prove once and for all that Lennon was an absolute shit to Cyn & Julian? (And did not anyone who has ever loved John or the Beatles already know that, anyhoo?) Did not every frickin' person on this planet know that John & Yoko were about as annoying and self-indulgent as possible, as well? What is the point of this picture? Look, Lennon is one of my heroes.  And the Beatles affect my life in so many ways it is impossible to measure.  But I can take a hatchet job.  Hack away.  Lennon was just a man, ultimately; a very flawed human being who rode a crest of fame and adoration and scrutiny unlike anyone I will ever see again in my lifetime.  Considering what happened to the early rock stars, Elvis, and Michael Jackson, I think "being a dick to your first wife and kid" and "telling folks that you think you are Jesus" is not all that bad.  If you want to do a hatchet job, at least make it entertaining and/or thought-provoking.  
• Looking For Eric is in the post.  I watched The Kids Are All Right on demand last night and Renee bought Scott Pilgrim for me last week.  (Thanks, Peanut.)  I have not seen Paul or 127 Hours yet.  This looks like a pretty lackluster year for me and new movies.  I would also like to mention Client 9, though.  That makes four great new films for me in 2010.  
• Renee & I are going to have the mostest splendidest Thanksgiving evah! Check this out:  It is just us two and the kitties.  Renee is making crab cakes for her.  I am having an omelette.  We will drink Champagne and Chablis.  We will watch old movies, junkie teevee and I will read aloud to her the last chapter from Lynn Barber's fantastic memoirs.  I think I would like to do a Gershwin doubleheader of sorts and watch An American in Paris and Manhattan.  
• I bought Me & Orson Welles and I just love it.  I gobble it up like candy.  Renee likes it, as well but also thinks it is kind of sappy, the ending in particular for her is pretty eye-rolling.  I do not care.  I love it.  I have not read the novel that the book is based on but I get the feeling the novel is prob sappy, too.  I think Linklater was true to the book and made a gorgeous, (Dick Pope shot it) optimistic, hopeful coming of age story.  The humanity! Horrors! Quadruple space!  Plus Christian McKay is so good as Welles it is frightening.  

Sorry this post started on such a bad note.  Everyone have a splendid, safe Thanksgiving.  I love you all.

More Random Poop (w/ Bullets)

But no lectures aboot Susan Sontag.

• The Guess Who has got to be one of the worst groups in the history of humans.  Look, I understand the studio/hit version of American Woman.  I have never particularly have liked the song but I understand why it was such a big hit.  It sounds like a hit, the lyrics are kinda punkish, they've got attitude (even if it is stupid) & it does have a good beat, if you know what I mean, but their other (modest) hits, especially No Time Left For You, or whate'er the fuck it is called are so painfully bad that it is not e'en worth discussing.  (But, of course, I will.)  Listening to No Time today at work it was plain that the singer was just stretching rhymes together.  "Watch and chain"? Really? And the singer's 'plea' for peace is so lethargic, stale, and insipid that it shows in great big bright lights just what the singer is really singing aboot:  Another Hit Single.  Ugh! Where is Bill Hicks when you need him? Oh, here he is.  Play from your heart.  And I am not even going to get in to the whole Lester Bangs Live Guess Who review.  It is in this book.  Buy this fucking book.  If you do nothing else with your paycheck this Friday, lay down fifteen measly dollars and buy Carburetor Dung this weekend.  It will change your life.
• Man, the Dems are starting to win some news cycles, right after Labor Day.  Shocker! What is it aboot us cynical, Question Eevvvvvvvvvrything! Liberals, so afraid to stand up to the Fucking Naked Reagan Emperors? Where are the guts for our Dem Public Servants? Where did it all go wrong? It started to go wrong in November 1984.  Reagan had backtracked on most of his biggest aims (he actually did raise some taxes) and he 'cut and run' when the Libyan bombing happened.  (Plus, there is that whole 1980 October Surprise, dealing for hostages with Iran.)  Still, the 'Image' of tough Cowboy Reagan reigned supreme.  (Poor Mondale, he prob would have been the last true Liberal Prez.  Instead, it is the truly awesome, yet crushingly vilified Jimmy Carter who fills that role.)  And then 9-1-1 happened.  And the Dems have been running scared ever since.  The O'Donnell victory is the icing on the National Cake that the Dems need.   That, and the Obama Tax Cuts Measure (which should be voted on RIGHT NOW!, both bills.) Let the GOP run on the Bush Tax Cuts and vote on it.  And let the Dems run on the Obama Tax Cuts and vote on it.  It is a frickin' no-brainer, here, really.  Yet, despite the news cycles going our way for once, the USS Teabagger taking on water, I have serious doubts our CongressCritters are going to do the Right Thing.  
• You know what? I want you to watch a couple of videos.  Watch all of them, do not cheat.  I used to spend aboot a month of my young Summers w/ my Grandparents, two weeks each.  One Summer, my program was interrupted for this amazing, prescient speech by our President, Jimmy Carter.  Natch, I moaned and bitched, as a child, "I want to watch baseball, yada yada yada, ... "  My Gramps, Charles Lewis, sed, (not a Liberal, a Union Democrat, eschewing Big Time Religion in Evangelical Oklahoma, and a thorn in the Love of His Life's Rightist wife) "No, Michael.  That is the President of the United States.  He has taken the time to say something to us, it is important we listen to him."  Please watch the speech in full.  Carter was right.  He has been right over and over again.  I cannot link to Hunter S Thompson's Come To Jesus Moment re Carter, but it is magical.  Watch Gonzo.  It is all in there.
• Anyone else do Silent Sundays on TCM last Sunday? They showed The Student Prince by Lubitsch.  You know, you can take your Passion of Joan of Arc, and your DeMille, and your plainly, unforgivably racist, reactionary asshole, "History written with lightning" D.W. Griffith and flush 'em down the toilet.  Eisenstein, Murnau, & Lubitsch were the true masters of the silent cinema (& any lucky-ass soul that was directing Garbo.)  I've always preferred Lubitsch but am now leaning towards Murnau.  (My fave Murnau, who Hollywood certainly understood was gay, quote is:  "I hire my drivers based on their looks."  Tragically, young, he died in a car accident.)  Student Prince is a comedy, really, a musical comedy (without sound) as only Lubitsch could do.  It is smart, hilarious, and already (1927) shows the famous PR slogan:  The Lubitsch Touch.  (Like the Beatles, Lubitsch actually lived up to his ludicrous Headline Slogans.)  The Student Prince, an extremely nominal picture on the face of it, a romcom for the silent era, absolutely shimmers with wit and invention and attitude.  The 'Touch', as it were, is visible in the first reel, with all the citizens simply lowering their hats in deference to the King.  It is a joke repeated over and over that through his artless style does not grow stale but, yet, gets funnier and funnier, and richer, and richer, and more touching until we are in a new set-up.  (It is a shame Lubitsch chucked drama in the late 20s, because his Revolutionary War drama, Passion [made before he blessed us here in the US] is an absolute popcorn-muncher, on the edge of your seat nine-reel Dickens book set to life, and SILENT. The crucial 'Marie Antoinette' beheading scene is some of the most riveting cinema I have ever seen.  I saw it at the Castro, a German Film Fest Thingy, and my 'date', as it were, made a sound unlike I have never heard when the head was shown to the mob.  It was an equal blend of delight for the rabble and horror for the blade and skull revealed.  Hell, we ALL cheered when the head was shown.  What does that say about us?)  Lubitsch, more than any other master, and he is one of my beloved masters:  (Hawks, Bunuel, Welles, Frears, Lubitsch, Linklater, Powell/Pressburger, Hamer, Murnau, Huston, Polanski, Hitchcock, Curtiz, Busby Berkeley, etc, ... ) knew how to make life fun through films.  And unlike Warner Brothers in the 30s, he did it with no overt political message.  Sure, he is making fun of the Bolshevik bitching aboot the handbag in (The greatest film e'er made:  ) Trouble in Paradise but that is all it is, sweet bitching.  Lubitsch was like Busby Berkeley in that way.  He both subverted and rose above the common, topical poiltical message of the times, by saying:  There is glitz, glamor, high-life avaiable to all those that truly want it.  And it has nothing to do with money.  It has to do with TASTE, an appreciation for the those things that might be considered beyond your reach.  He asked his audiences to reach for the stars, in a glossy, flimsy, lacy, gauzy, sexy, ironic, winking sort of way that could ne'er (sadly) play well today.  It astounds me how irony and satire have died in the cinema (and Rock.)  Nuance is dead, a wink means naught as another Apatow Blockbuster careens thru the Mid-west.  Sex, money, cynicism were the true Themes of our pre-War Puritanical Heartland, yet those audiences were amongst the most savvy & smart audiences e'er, resembling, perhaps, but smarter, prob than a Piedmont Art-House crowd today.    And no one expressed that better thru art, cinema, than an-expat Jew/German, comedic star/auteur legend than Ernst Lubitsch. 
• The Rangers will likely clinch on Oakland soil.  I mean no disrespect.  Jules knows what I am talking aboot (& Meghan, too.)  
• Jesus, some one returned a bottle of The Prisoner (Ugh, an over-extracted, high-alcohol, super-ripe FRUIT MONSTER that I hate) b/c they said it was 'corked'.  They had not even opened the Fucker.  The top of the cork was halfway red and smelled like cooking wine.  I gave it to nick, he LURVES them big Napa wines.  Yuck.  
• For the novices oot there:  If the top of the cork is blonde/tan (White) or ruby/rust (Red) and smells like cooking sherry or even displays the slightest, tiniest whiff of vinegar, you have got a WINNER! It is a wine well-stored.  Decant that mofo and share it w/ your hated in-laws.  You'll earn super-mega-family points. 

Gosh, I just do not know when to shut up.  I am going to savor a Winston, Ranger Manager, Ron Washington's brand, and say Good Night.

The Crucial Albums (UPDATE!)

When I first purchased Congratulations by MGMT I listened to it (or parts, or most of it) at least once, oftentimes 2ce or three times a day.

Then I took a break, as I am wont to do, and I reckon many other music fiends do the same.

Listened to it today, expecting my love to have soured or grown cold.

Not the case.

The Siberian 'Suite' sounds much better today, w/ its' slightly out of phase version of Cohen's So Long Maryanne, & the e'er so lovely mostly instrumental middle piece inducing The Hill's Climb swoons.

Song for Dan Treacy is as crisp, smart, & sassy as ever.  & the vocal performance on Flash Delirium is as brilliant, nuanced, & sophisticated as some of the best of Lennon's later Beatles work.

Still fantastic.

But, I claimed it was the best new album I'd bought since Crooked Rain by Pavement (1994).


I still stand by that today.


Here are the crucial NEW albums I have loved since R.E.M. changed my life in 1984:

• White Denim/Fits (2009) 
• Other Lives/Other Lives (April 7, 2009  -my birthday!)
• Mary Weiss/Dangerous Game (2007)
• Lily Allen/Alright, Still (2006)
• Continental Stomp/Hot Club of Cowtown (2003)
• Slanted and Enchanted/Pavement (1992)
• Wowee Zowee/Pavement (1995)
• Chrome Cranks/Chrome Cranks (1994)
• High Llamas/Hawaii (1996)
• Stereolab/Refried Ectoplasm (1995)
• Stereolab/Sound Dust (2001)
• Nirvana/Nevermind (1991)
• Pixies/Bossanova (1990)
• Pixies/Trompe le Monde (1991)
• Oblivians/The Oblivians play 9 songs w/ Mr Quintron (1997)
• High Llamas/Gideon Gaye (1994)
• High Llamas/Cold and Bouncy (1995)
• Teenage Fanclub/Grand Prix (1995)
• Teenage Fanclub/The Concept (1991)
• Belle & Sebastian/Tigermilk (1999-  US release!)
• The Perfect Disaster/Heaven Scent (1990)
• Cheater Slicks/Don't Like You (1995)
• Cheater Slicks/Forgive Thee (1998)
• Belle & Sebastian/If You're Feeling Sinister (1996)
• The Smiths/The Smiths (1984)
• The Cure/Disintegration (1989)
• The Smiths/Strangeways Here We Come (1987)
• R.E.M./Murmur (1983)
• R.E.M./Reckoning (1984)
• R.E.M./Document (1987)
• R.E.M./Life's Rich Pageant (1986)
• R.E.M./Green (1998)
• Stereolab/Space-age Bachelor Pad Music (1993)
• The Perfect Disaster/Up (1989)
• Dirtbombs/Ultra-glide in Black (2001)
• Rocket from the Crypt/Scream Dracula Scream (1995)
• Radiohead/OK Computer (1997)
• Hot Club of Cowtown/Tall Tales (1999)
• Hot Club of Cowtown/Swingin' Stampede (1998)
• Rocket from the Crypt/Circa:  Now! (1995)
• Cheater Slicks/Refried Dreams (1999)
• Jon Spencer Blues Explosion/Orange (1994)
• Stereolab/Transient Random Noise Bursts (1993)
• Pavement/Crooked Rain Crooked Rain (1994)
• My Bloody Valentine/Loveless (1991)
• Pixies/Doolittle (1989)
• Oblivians/Popular Favorites (1996)
• High Llamas/Snowbug (1999)
• Stereolab/Emperor Tomato Ketchup (1996)
• Lord High Fixers/Is Your Club a Secret Weapon? (1999)
• Lord High Fixers/Group Improviastion ... That's Music (1997)
• Spacemen 3/Recurring (1991)
• The Smiths/Louder Than Bombs (1987)
• XTC/Skylarking (1986)
• Beulah/The Coast is Never Clear (released on 9/11/2001!)

NOTES:  It seems the best years were 1996 & particularly 1999.  Now, I have heard theories before re the double digits for great rock, i.e. '55, '66, '77, '88, etc, ... Maybe they were right or maybe the end of the century put enough of a burden on rock artists to produce seminal work before the century ended.  What was I listening to between 2001 & 2007, you might ask:  STAX.  STAX.  & more STAX.  I'm so glad I love MGMT now b/c it gives me a 'Holy Trinity' of new bands to love (Other Lives, White Denim, & MGMT.)  I truly dedicated myself to Stax records for 7 years.  I wanted to know EVERYTHING aboot the Memphis label.  It was a mySpace 'mall diva', Lily Allen (& Mary Weiss [Reigning Sound, nee Oblivians backing her] & Amy Winehouse) of all folks to wake me from my STAX slumber.  I still consider the Beatles/STAX/Bonzo Dog Band/Steely Dan/Spacemen 3 the greatest groups of all-time.  Smiths fan might wonder, What about Meat Is Murder & The Queen is Dead? I did not hear those records, partic. Queen until well after they were released.  I loved The Smiths/The Smiths but took a snooze (except for the singles comp, Louder Than Bombs-   ah! tearing down Austin freeways w/ Kate & Dave & Allison blaring London on my crappy jambox from the backseat, ... ) until I read in the NME that the Smiths had broken up & that Strangeways would be their swansong.  I read that in the smoking section of the Drama Dept, UT; bought Strangeways a day later & still think it's fantastic.  Meat is my fave Smiths record, their best by far, I think, anyway.  I din't get in to the Replacements until they started releasing crappy records.  I believe they're the unrighteous band, compared to the righteous R.E.M, in Lester Bangs insightful & prescient theory of righteous/unrighteous band duos:  Stones: un, Beatles: righteous; Sex Pistols: un, Clash: righteous, etc, ... R.E.M. were righteous, the Replacements were not.  It is possible this duopoly is still playing out, perhaps Blur & Oasis? But I just can't be bothered, I'd rather listen to Otis Redding.  Finally, I'd like to point oot that STAX kicks Motown's ass every day of the week & sideways, to boot.  If you do anything after reading this, please, start by listening to Otis Redding, Carla Thomas, Booker T. & the MGs, Rufus Thomas, Johnny Taylor, the Dramatics, the Mar-Keys, the Bar-Kays, Isaac Hayes, Albert King, Barbara Brown, Sam & Dave, Wendy Rene, Wm. Bell, the Astors, the Staple Singers, etc, ... 

Honestly, even after this huge list, if I was homeless & could pick only 10 cds they would be The STAX story boxset, Rubber Soul, Revolver, White Album, With the Beatles, & Beatles for Sale.  all Beatle albums would be in their orig mono versions (just like those great STAX records.)

UPDATE!:  I have just added 2 albums I had forgotten about.  They are now included underneath The Smiths/Louder Than Bombs.  I will keep doing updates as I see fit.  One note aboot XTC/Skylarking (1986):  I bought the UK import vinyl (embossed cover) version (& no Dear God on the record- instead: Mermaid Smiled) at Waterloo records (when it was south of the river) on election day in Texas.  It was my first election & I lost.  I voted for Mark White but Turdblossom's Bill Clements won, prob due to Turdblossom's 'imaginary' Democratic bugging of his office.  You see, he was an asshole even back in 1986!

I have just started

A fun project, a soundtrack of my life, if you will.  I am going thru my entire iTunes file and picking out one song each from all the artists that have changed my life, or have really moved me, man.  Certain artists, groups are allowed two tracks.  Those artists, groups would be, say, the Mighty 'Lab, Beatles, R.E.M., etc, ... 


I'll make a playlist, make a running order, and then make a boxset of cds.  

FINALLY!

Here it is.  I am going to live up to one of my promises & review the Beatles Mono Box Set.  (& the stereo remasters of Let It Be & Abbey Road, which were not released in mono back in the 60s.)

I am 42 years old.  I have loved the Beatles (& been an Anglophile) since I saw Yellow Submarine as a four year old in 1972.  One of my earliest memories is being on some man's shoulders, Joel? John?, walking past the stadium that the Sooners still play at, on my way to the University/Union theater to see Yellow Submarine.  Was it my first time? I do not know.  That film changed my life in ways I cannot express in words to folks today.  I became obsessed w/ the Beatles (& the song Yellow Submarine, in particular) that, I figure, I drove my single mother & "family" crazy.

Another of my earliest memories is being in a grocery/drug store in Norman, OK & desiring (& getting) a crap 4 song ep of hack artists doing Yellow Submarine & other nautical/children's themed songs.  I treasured that record, long gone (& prob worth a mint on EBay today.)

You know, Donna, my Mum, prob remembers better than I, but I believe I got my first record Xmas of 1972, which I believe would've been played on someone else's stereo b/c I dint get my first (Winnie the Pooh) record player for another couple of years.  That record was Yellow Submarine, which listening to now, is arguably the Beatles worst record.  (Help!, as a whole gives Yellow Sub a run for its' money, as far as I'm concerned these days.)

But for a four year old, Yellow Submarine is pretty cool.  Even the George Martin soundtrack side, bringing up memories of the film, which to this day I still treasure & nod my head sagely to when I hear it (which is extremely rarely.)

My point is, it was over.  I've loved the Beatles ever since.  & I've loved them in differing ways over the years.  In my youth it was the psychedelic period that spoke most to me.  The best psychedelic rock is English:  The Pink Floyd, John's Children, The Incredible String Band, early Traffic, The Eyes, etc, ... the stuff that got to the heart of early childhood, the stuff of memories, the stuff that recalls the type of crystal clear memories that I've been speaking of today.  SF psychedelia & Hendrix have always been so drenched & heavy & uncompromising that they wear me out.  They hurt my soul, press down on my subconscious like a ton of bricks & give me The Fear.

But, naturally, that changed as I grew older.  The first crucial Beatles record I bought on my own was the brilliant Beatles Rock n Roll Music Double LP.  This is a comp, with covers & original tracks all in chronological order (for the most part.)  Still, as enamored as I was with this record, including an early love for I'm Down & The Night Before, I still stood by my righteous belief that the Beatles were at their best in 1967, full stop.

I had listened to the White Album on headphones & my parents had told me all about the "Paul is dead" stuff before I started buying records on my own.  The White Album (released 1968, the year I was born!) scared the living shit outta me! That was a place as a child that I did not want to go to.  & let's be honest, the Beatles first choice of name for the White Album (which is actually simply called The Beatles) was A Doll's House.   What a perfect way to describe that scary Victorian mansion of a double LP, w/ it's blind hallways, secret passageways & haunted rooms.  

It finally began to dawn on me that the Beatles best work was early in their career.  Two things suggested this to me.  One, repeated listenings to Beatles Rock n Roll music at a very loud volume & a "scientific" study I did on my own.  To wit, I rated all  Beatles songs on a scale from one to three stars (not unlike iTunes, eh? & this was in 1983!) & averaged them all out per record & I did it for all my records.  To my chagrin I found out that most of the highest scoring records were early UK Beatles records.  (By 1983 I was already hip to the differences between the Beatles early UK/US LP differences.)  I was shocked.  I refused to believe it.  I dint care that the (awesome) Beatles Illustrated Record by Carr & Tyler said the UKs Hard Day's Night was better than Sergeant Pepper.  Even if my own stats confirmed the same result, I refused to believe it.  

I did not Come to Jesus, as it were, until after I had dropped out of college, & listened to The Beatles Past Masters Volume 1 on CD, high on X (we called it X back then, not E,) & pot.  Long Tall Sally was the real revelation, & I knew then that that track was recorded live in the studio in one take.  The final nail in the coffin was reading Greil Marcus' excellent essay on the group (still the best critical writing on the Beatles ever, though Ian McDonald's book, Revolution in the Head is fairly damn excellent, as well,) in Rolling Stone's Illustrated History of Rock And Roll (an amazing book, that sorely needs an update.)

It took until the nineties, basically, for me to realize that the Beatles actually got worse, not better.  Going on two decades now, that is still my belief.

Considering that the Beatles released their (first) remastered CDs at the dawn of digital portable audio, it never occurred to me that I was missing out on anything.  I treasured those CDs.  The first CDs I bought were Sergeant Pepper & Skylarking by XTC (produced by Todd Rundgren, a fab record, but very Beatl-y) at Waterloo records (back when it was still in south Austin) in 1987.  &, as mentioned before, it was the Past Masters Vol 1 CD that brought me to Jesus.

But, as the Anthology CDs came out, & the BBC CDs, and the aforementioned McDonald book, most Beatle die-hards started to feel we'd been, not cheated, but that we were not  getting the whole story, you know? For instance, when the fuck is Carnival of Light gonna finally see the light of day?

When it was announced (on my 41st birthday!) that the remasters were going to happen, including the untouched, unfixed mono pressings of every Beatles recording that had originally been mixed to mono, well, Daddy, here, had a "wet dream" as John Winston Lennon so eloquently put it.

You know, back in the day, in Austin, I bought a beat-up, used copy of Sergeant Pepper in mono.  All I cared about & could notice was the different sound effects & talk just before the Sergeant Pepper (Reprise) track.  That was in the 80s.  Mono sucks.  That was my attitude then (& prob not just mine.)

The Beatles white box, Mono Box Set, is the Holy Grail Beatles fans like myself have been waiting for for decades now.  I am 42 years old.  I severely doubt they're going to get any closer to the essence of those 60s recordings than they have now.  & considering that all Beatles recordings were mixed for mono first, up until Let It Be, this is truly how the Beatles remembered & wanted these albums & singles to be heard & enjoyed.  The other great thing about the Mono Box Set is that the tracks weren't eq'd, or messed with regarding noise reduction.  The original masters were cleaned up, & mastered for CD, & that's it.  No noise reduction, no mp3 volume adjusting, nothing.

Moreover, the care that went in to the CD sleeve reproductions, literal mini replications of the LPs themselves, down to the inside sleeves, is so breathtaking as to make, I'm sure, many folks in their 50s & 60s now swoon with delight.

And yet, and yet, ... What about the music?

Daddy will tackle that tomorrow.

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