Some that have known me a really long time might have raised an eyebrow to hear that some of the more recent additions to my MP3 player have been, like, Pink, and Rihanna (just one song tho… really!).
I know the world’s coming to an end now, though.
In the last two weeks, I have added (whispers) Justin Timberlake (just one song!!). And Poison.
(I shouldn’t say anything bad about Poison. Drummer Rikki Rockett is really cool and actually is a scooter-enthusiast acquaintance of my friend Mike in Chicago.)
But please kill me if I start hitting the Warrant and Winger libraries. Eek.
Get a cup of coffee or your beverage of choice and prepare to sit a spell. We’re going to be a while here.
I pulled an all-nighter Thursday night working and had an hour or two to kill before starting the Friday workday, so I indulged a bit in a fave activity of hunting YouTube for music stuff I remember from the past but hadn’t seen in a while, or at least stuff from the same time period.
I started collecting some links and then, when I was finished, I looked at it all and just kinda went whoa. Completely accidentally, I had somehow managed to basically assemble all the pieces of the puzzle – or at least the major ones – of my lifelong addiction to music, which began as a very young child.
There are, of course, thousands of other associated pieces I haven’t collected here; virtually everything I have ever listened to helped to formulate my musical tastes and feed the addiction as an adult, certainly. One of my most beloved genres today, as an older adult, is Australian garage rock of the late Seventies and Eighties – but in the U.S., you didn’t hear or see most of that stuff back then, and I wasn’t introduced to a lot of it until the big boom of the Internet, years after the fact. But a lot of that old Aussie stuff was heavily influenced by both British and American punk rock, old British Invasion and American surf music, and the Motor City Sound in Detroit, so in a way, it was sort of all related to what I grew up with anyway.
But all these YouTube videos I have collected here in this and the next two posts – yeah, these are pretty much the very most major pieces that created the foundation of my music junkieness (and my own musicianship, occasionally) as a young adult through today.
In the final and third post, I have collected stuff I either witnessed on original broadcast or is from the same specific time period. The ones in this post and the next one, I obviously did not see at the time they were aired because as far as most of them are concerned, I wasn’t born yet (with the exception of the Raiders, in which case I might have just been born).
And most of this first group is way before my time, but it’s important I include them. I have often said that my biggest musical influence of all was my father, who was also sort of a music junkie in his time when rock & roll was still brand new. It was stuff from his collection I heard the most before I started making my own decisions about music (at three years old, heh). My dad had a tremendous stack of 45 RPM records and LPs and was a musician himself, as was my uncle, and my dad’s first cousin was a DJ on local radio for many years, and my mom’s a music fan as well.
I get it from all of them, but it was my father and I who were most alike in music junkieness of sorts. I just took it to the next level and eventually became way more deeply immersed in the addiction than he ever was. (And some might say far more out of control, given the amount of recorded music I have amassed and things I’ll do to see my favorites play live, like take off to L.A. or Chicago at the last minute.) ;)
Must start this off with The Man himself, Mr. Chuck Berry – blurry video, but this is my favorite. We had the original Chess CD in that stack of 45s, and it probably got played in my record player a decade and a half later as much as it did when my dad was a teenager (UPDATE 10/2009 – unfortunately, like many, this video got pulled from YouTube and the only replacement I found is just a sound recording with a single photo. Hopefully will be able to replace it with something better later if found).
My dad played piano as well as being a drummer, and monopolized the family piano as a teenager, learning how to play every single thing Little Richard ever did.
And I can’t very well write about my father and his monopolizing of the piano without a hat tip to Jerry Lee Lewis. I think we had every single he ever put out on the original Sun label in the Sixties on 45 AND a few 78s (!) as well. (I sold most on eBay a few years ago for a fair amount.)
Now, both my parents were Elvis fans, especially having both grown up in West Tennessee. In fact, my dad was such an Elvis fan and did such a good Elvis, he was picked to do Elvis in a high school musical presentation and was apparently legend for it ever after; last year, when I was having dinner with my dad’s cousin and his girlfriend (both of whom graduated with my father) and talking about that, the girlfriend leaned over the table towards me and said, “Oh, your dad WAS Elvis.” Dad’s cousin decried the fact that he had to sing “I’m Gonna Be A Wheel Someday”, while my father got to be Elvis. Hee.
So Elvis was king, but somehow I missed the Elvis fan gene. See above on associated pieces of the puzzle of influences; certainly that’s an influence, and certainly Elvis influenced many of my later influences. I just always liked Jerry Lee better. And my dad could do a pretty good Jerry Lee, too.
My parents were both in college in Memphis in the early Sixties and frequently went out to see live music, so they got to see a lot of the Stax and similar legends perform live back in the day. So a little bit of that appreciation of Memphis soul rubbed off on me too (and is probably the only reason I still have any love left at all for this city I live in and city of my birth).
I give you the masters, Booker T. & The MGs, featuring the awesome guitar of Steve Cropper and bassist Donald “Duck” Dunn, who can still often be found playing around here and down in the Tunica casinos today. If they look familiar to you for some other reason, it’s probably because you saw them in The Blues Brothers movie with John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd years later.
And another personal favorite and this song will always mean Memphis to me as well as the previous one – Steve Cropper and Duck Dunn are featured in this video as well with Sam & Dave:
You may find it curious I have included these next two videos in this post. My aunts were teenagers when I was born and huge Beatles and Monkees fans – and later, Bobby Sherman, David Cassidy, etc. – so I get a lot of that from them and yeah, The Beatles are definitely a big influence for me, but I’m not including them in these posts because in truth, there are other groups from the same time that were really a more major influence on me. And goodness knows I love me some Monkees.
Anyway, we have more or less now established that my then-teenage aunts were boy crazy schoolgirls with mad crushes on various teen idols. Probably the only other band that they crushed on as much back then as The Beatles and The Monkees was Paul Revere and The Raiders. You might not know that the legendary hit songwriting team Boyce & Hart originally wrote “(I’m Not Your) Steppin’ Stone” for the Raiders, who recorded what in my opinion is a better version of the song – which, of course, later became a huge hit for The Monkees.
Yeah, sure, the Raiders were big teen idols of the Sixties, thanks in part to appearing on the TV show Where the Action Is every day after school hours, and being not only cute, but goofily humorous. They were also excellent, excellent musicians; in the liner notes of Raiders anthology CD The Essential Ride (an excellent compilation that really showcases how good they were throughout their career), Letterman show bass player Will Lee hat tips longtime Raider Phil Volk as his inspiration for learning how to play bass.
Anyway, yeah, my teenage aunts had various Raiders posters pinned to their walls in worship and all their records, alongside John, Paul, George, and Ringo and Davy, Micky, Peter, and Mike, and god knows who all else.
But my dad had their first album – which, for me, that’s instant rock & roll cred right there. Practically from birth, I remember it playing in our home and playing often.
Point to note here – my dad didn’t buy a whole lot of “new” rock & roll in the Sixties. He bought later albums by the rock & rollers he grew up with like Elvis & Jerry Lee; both my parents were into folk & Dylan; a handful of rock/pop like Creedence and Blood, Sweat & Tears; but by the later part of the Sixties and thereafter, he pretty much stuck to country and latter-day albums of his favorites from the Fifties.
The fact that my father bought the first Raiders album when it came out (and quite possibly before his boy-crazy teenage sisters had even discovered them) is really rather stunning. I’m guessing that, as a drummer himself, he was somewhat drawn to Mike “Smitty” Smith’s drumming style, but I know there was something else beyond that for him to have picked that one album up, out of all the other thousands of rock records that came out that same year that he didn’t buy. Which makes me appreciate the Raiders even more – like I said, instant rock & roll cred for me right there.
Consequently, sharing the Raiders’ Essential Ride compilation with him on a long drive through Alabama and Mississippi in the early part of this decade was the last “musical moment” we shared together before he passed away, and really the only one we’d had in a very long time at that point.
To date, Paul Revere and The Raiders have yet to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. It’s a downright shame.
These videos are both from 1966, so I was either born or almost at the time. This first video is really blurry and is also a lip-synched performance, but probably one of their earliest TV appearances and the song’s the only YouTube video I found from that first album (UPDATE 10/2009 – this video had been removed, but I was able to find a much better copy of the same performance):
This one’s a little later but is a better video and a live (or mostly live) performance (and be sure to check out the extremely young looking actor Michael Landon introducing them) (UPDATE 10/2009 - Well, like many, the video I referenced before has been removed and I couldn’t find another copy, but thanks to bassist Phil Volk’s son Brian, who uploaded this to YouTube, here they are on The Hollywood Palace show in late 1966. This is one of my favorite Raiders songs anyway, “The Great Airplane Strike”, so thanks, Brian, for uploading it!):
UPDATE 10/2009: I just found this video of a 1979 reunion show (which I remember watching when it was first on) with the original five Raiders – Mark Lindsay, Phil “Fang” Volk, Drake Levin, Mike “Smitty” Smith, and Paul Revere – which is just so much fun, I just had to include it. (RIP Drake & Smitty.)
Next post, I start coming into my own… stay tuned.
There are some things about living in Memphis that you just don’t usually see anywhere else on the planet (well, except maybe Vegas or something). Newscoma reminded me of one of those occasions when she wrote about singing for Elvis the other night. I wrote about this particular day back in 1997 the week it happened, but I really only made a minor mention in passing at the time, and the tale is worth a little more telling than that and worthy of its own post.
First of all, I don’t really blink an eye at seeing Elvis impersonators – also known as Elvis Tribute Artists – around Memphis. It’s not like it’s something that happens every day, or even every week or every month; but yeah, I see them around sometimes. Whether they’re dressed in full regalia, or just out somewhere like at Rite-Aid or something, dressed in regular clothes – they have that look and you just think, “Oh, Elvis impersonator.” Usually I’ll be in or close to downtown at the time, and I figure they’re probably mostly from out of town, visiting and touring the usual places.
I’m sure I’ve been wrong sometimes and a few guys I’ve pegged as being Elvis impersonators have just been regular guys who are into that look, be it the Young Elvis or Old Elvis look. But I’m pretty sure the one little Asian guy, shorter than me (and I’m short) and probably weighing all of 110 lbs., with the giant black hair and big muttonchop sideburns, Sun Studio t-shirt, and big gold chain around his neck with the TCB pendant, buying Tums and aspirin and a Coke at Walgreen’s downtown on Union was an Elvis impersonator, yup.
Elvis impersonators get indigestion and headaches and gotta have something to wash the aspirin down with too, just like me and you. He was also buying condoms, but let’s not talk about that.
It could be the reason I don’t really bat an eye at all upon an Elvis impersonator sighting is because I used to work with one – probably one of Memphis’ most famous, in fact. Joe Kent and I worked together for a little while way back in the late Eighties at a local record store. I remember being somewhat fascinated about his other career when we first met – and I hadn’t been living in Memphis all that long then anyway, about a year and a half by then. But then after a while, it was just like – oh yeah, that’s Joe, Elvis, okay. I’d forget about it, and then someone would come in the store who was a big Elvis fan, or a fan of Joe’s, and then you’d remember – oh yeah, he IS an Elvis impersonator, that’s right, forgot about that. Though really, Joe kind of is (or at least was then) all Elvis, all the time; but he was also just, “Joe, will you get me a Pepsi when you walk down to Wendy’s?” Joe at work. Very nice and funny guy, in any case.
Every year in August comes the week many locals refer to as Death Week, when folks from all over the globe descend upon Memphis to honor the anniversary of The King’s death. A true Elvis fan – which I am really not, though both my parents were very much so – wouldn’t call it that; and even though I’m not really a fan, I have an appreciation of his importance in not only this city but in modern music, yes. Still and all, fans and non-fans alike – you mention the words “Death Week” around here, few people whose native language is English are gonna go, “Huh?”
One fine gorgeous August day during Death Week in 1997 – a day that was for once not unbearably hot and humid and was shockingly pleasant for August in Memphis – I needed to run downtown to Beale Street on my lunch hour to pick something up; what exactly that was now, I don’t recall. It was probably something I had seen in a gift shop down there the weekend before that I wanted to send to friends in Australia, or maybe I was picking up tickets for a show at the Daisy. Don’t remember.
Since it was Death Week, thousands of fans, media, and others – and Elvis impersonators, naturally – had descended upon Memphis and were everywhere, but especially downtown and the touristy places like Beale Street. But not only that which was usual and common every year – since it was the 20th anniversary of his death that year, there were many, many more people in town than usual that year. I wasn’t really looking forward to the trek down to Beale, but for whatever reason, I needed to go that week and figured going down during the day would be a lot smarter than at night.
And there on Beale Street that day, I witnessed a scene so surreal, I am still kind of jaw-droppingly in awe right now just thinking about it.
Elvis really WAS everywhere. There must have been dozens – maybe even a couple of hundred – Elvises just concentrated within a couple of city blocks at that moment. Almost all in street clothes, ranging from jeans and t-shirts, to jogging suits, to shorts and Hawaiian shirts, to – well, you name it – which just made it all the more surreal. Walking around, alone or in groups or with wives or girlfriends, many carrying shopping bags from various stores in the general area. Just regular guys doing regular, touristy stuff. And they ALL looked like Elvis.
And an Elvis of every kind imaginable. Every Elvis look from Young Elvis to Old Elvis, Skinny Elvis to Fat Elvis, and everything in between. Elvises in all shapes, colors, and sizes, and speaking who knows how many languages as they passed on the street. There were short Elvises, tall Elvises, dwarf Elvises, really tall NBA player-style Elvises. Black Elvises, Asian Elvises, Middle Eastern Elvises, Hispanic Elvises, bunches of White Elvises, and one blonde Elvis that had to have been Scandivanian or something but other than the hair color and whatever European tongue he was speaking in kind of a high, Mickey Mouse voice – yeah, he was Elvis, all right. Dozens of male Elvises, and even a couple of female Elvises.
The sheer number of Elvii of all varieties, concentrated in that one very small area, at that one moment – it just kind of blew my mind. I was in complete and utter, dumbstruck awe.
If I never leave Memphis, it’ll probably never happen like that again. Ever.
But for that one moment, just like Mojo Nixon (who once called my boyfriend a “crazy SOB” almost 20 years ago, but that’s another story for another time) once sang about – Elvis really WAS everywhere, indeed.
I noticed the other day when my Last.fm weekly & all-time charts updated that over half (six of ten, actually) of my all-time top played tracks since I joined Last.fm last year are all Tennesseans. I like to give the locals a boost but this occurrence was really completely accidental and unintentional.
Not only that, but they’re all grouped right together right now – #2 through #7. Wild.
The chart below will change (somewhat) again next week and over the weeks to come, but right now they are: Big Star and Alex Chilton from Memphis, and the Rude Street Peters, Chick Graning, Tim Lee, and The Dirty Works from Knoxville.
In Googling while looking to verify some information for someone else – information that probably used to be in some brain cells killed long ago in my head – I once again ran across this August 2006 article from the Nashville Scene about Nashville’s music underground of the ’80s, an article that references tons of people I knew and practically every band I ever saw from 1982 to 1987. That article, and another similar recent article about that period that’s been floating around the ‘Net, always makes me glad I was there to witness much of the miracle that was happening at that time in non-country Nashville music. As I told Shadow 15‘s Scott Feinstein in the course of a brief e-mail exchange a few weeks ago, that was just a really special time to be around then, hanging out in that scene.
Government Cheese is playing? Yeah, I’m there, man. The Questionnaires, The Movement, Jet Black Factory, Webb Wilder, Bill Lloyd, Raging Fire, Jason and The Scorchers, Walk the West, and so very, very many more. Something to do every single night, somewhere to go, and someone to see.
The Knoxville contingent had it going on too at the time, but I think all of us in Middle Tennessee thought we had it better, snotty youngsters as we were. I saw a bunch of great Knoxville bands within Davidson and Rutherford County lines, though, first and foremost being Smokin’ Dave and the Premo Dopes. Happy to report that Todd Steed‘s still doin’ what he does best over yonder eastward.
As previously referenced on my old Replacements page, the word “alternative” had not yet been coined in those days as the end-all, be-all term for the indie music scene. “Indie” was already sometimes used, Rolling Stone was still calling it “college rock” in their charts. The word “underground” was tossed around a lot, and I guess that’s what we were all calling it most of the time then around Nashville. I don’t think there was any big definitive term at the time. It was just different than most everything else that was all over the dial on the radio at that time.
I know everyone was all excited because there seemed to be something HUGE happening. There had already been these big local scene explosions around the country, like Minneapolis and Los Angeles (like L.A. really needed it), and then closer to home in Athens, Georgia. A bunch of those bands from Athens that were almost like the home team to us because they played Nashville so much, suddenly they were getting ALL this national attention. And we were just SURE Nashville was gonna be next.
Well, there was some attention, a little. I’ve got Rolling Stone‘s 1985 yearbook back in the back room somewhere that has a little section on Nashville in their local bands section, that features bands that had mostly broken up by the time it was published, or would soon after. Jason and The Scorchers, yeah, they did well enough. We thought a whole lot more would follow in their wake, lots of very deserving, very talented folks. 1986 was this huge, huge year, absolutely electric in all the excitement.
And then – well, it just didn’t really happen. It was good to be there when it was happening, though. It was a great time to witness, something to see. And something I’ll likely never see (or hear) again. Not like that.
When I moved to Memphis in the beginning of 1988, it was a huge disappointment to find a music scene that was practically dead, and a fight to find decent radio. Rhodes College’s indie station was around at the time but changed format soon after I moved here, there were a few alternative shows on the public radio station but not full-time, then one of the AM stations tried a late-night show for a while that didn’t last long. As far as radio, we were mostly without until Nirvana broke and suddenly we had a 24-hour, big power station. The live scene mostly sucked. There were a few bands to get excited about, but most up them gave up soon enough in frustration because there was so little support of the Memphis music scene in general.
Memphis was nothing like what I had experienced in Nashville, though I was aware that at that same time things were winding down up there as well. Sometime around 1990 or so, friends in Nashville were telling me this band or that one had broken up, people had left town, this place or that place had closed, things just weren’t the same.
It was good while it lasted, in any case. It was great being there in the middle of this scene that just seemed like it was on fire, about to just freaking explode. All this electricity in the air, great bands and awesome music to listen to everywhere you turned, it seemed like for a while.
I have some more thoughts about those days bouncing around in my head today, but they’re of a more personal nature. I guess I knew this was going to happen, writing about those old days. Not sure if the rest is to be shared or not… guess we’ll see, or not…
This is beginning to feel like not only the work DAY, but the work WEEK that is never going to be over.
No sleep last night although I did grab what passed for a nap right before starting work this morning. I kind of ran into a snag last night – two snags, actually – and didn’t start on that freelance job as early as I should have (surprise, surprise) and it took longer than I’d hoped (surprise, surprise again), so I’m pretty exhausted once again. One of these days I will learn to just go ahead and do it and not take a break between my regular job’s end and starting on the freelance stuff ‘cos this just always happens, but I always have good intentions of doing better. Not that I would have necessarily gone to sleep any earlier, but I’d have gotten more than a half hour’s worth for sure.
Then, when it rains, it pours. Got called for more freelance tonight, due tomorrow, after already having turned in a request for more with the other place – thankfully not due until Friday, and Thursday is my day off. This one for tonight is short (if one can call three hours’ worth of work short) so with any luck, I get that done, have time to goof off, get to sleep in tomorrow, and have plenty of time to get the other job done (if I don’t goof off tomorrow procrastinating and thinking I’ve got plenty of time). I wish to god I could talk about what one of these I got today is about, but I can’t, of course, due to confidentiality mumbo jumbo. Let’s just say it’s going to be a fun and interesting change of pace this week, VERY different and unusual for the norm!!
Anyway, I’m sort of getting a little scattered about having so much on my plate and no sleep, but I really need to just chill seeing as how I did practically NO extra work last week since I flew to Houston and back, and very little the week before, and I really need to and should have the weekend free after all this. Sometimes I try to manage things where I don’t have to do any freelance work on my regular Thursday day off too, but that usually doesn’t work out, I usually wind up with something that’s due on Friday morning.
Josie and I were kinda tossing around the idea this morning about her coming down, and us and Stevie Kane going to Musicfest this weekend – that’s this weekend, right? I am so out of it this week – but they are having about as exhausting a week as I am and I think us old folks are probably going to just say no…
Well, since I’m never hungry and never eat, I thought today maybe I’d just make a habit of blogging during my lunch break and that way I get into a mostly daily habit again, hassle-free. Which is what I’m doing today, but you know that kinda junk is always subject to change with moi.
And actually I AM hungry today, kinda, but what’s worse is I’m craving Pancho’s and not enough time nor energy to do it. I really miss the Pancho’s that was on Union. They tore it down a few years ago and built a Starbucks there on the corner of Union and McLean. My aunt used to take me there every time I came down to Memphis when I was a kid and teenager. Then, years and years ago in the early days of living here, the ex and I used to go there at least once a week – at least until Cafe Ole’ opened, and then we were at Pancho’s once a week and Cafe O once a week. In fact, we were there at Pancho’s so much that for a while we had our own waiter, a longtime employee who got to know us well and would show up with chips and dip and salsa (multiple bowls, and the dip heated up after they stopped doing that regularly) at our table within seconds of our arrival. When he quit and went to work somewhere else, his roommate, who had started working as a waiter there and got to know us too, took over the routine. And Julie and I used to go there with Bayleigh, who is now grown with a child of her own, who then was a little bitty tiny baby, sitting in the high chair snacking on Cheerios. Where does the time go?
Anyway, yep, craving Mexican food but probably should be too tired and busy tonight to do anything about it and by then I might not be hungry anymore anyway. The only Pancho’s left is across town and yuck, the drive. Let’s not talk about the fact that I have not had ribs in FOREVER. About to die to go to Corky’s or downtown to the Rendezvous. Sure am glad they both have websites and you can order them shipped ‘cos Todd Steed tells me there’s no good BBQ in Knoxville and you can bet I will be ordering on occasion once I’m moved eastward.
Jo asked me what else there was to do around here anymore besides potentially going to the Beale Street festival this weekend, and I said heck, I don’t know, beats me. She said, “YOU don’t KNOW?” (Just like that.) I said, look, I work 60 to 90 hours a week and I spend most days talking to dogs all day long, what do I know. Not being negative, just saying…
And with that, I bid you adieu ’til I get two seconds to breathe again…
Once again, it’s another two-for-one Wall special! Yep, two new entries on the same day, this one and last one, all because I almost fell asleep while desperately trying to finish and post yesterday’s Wall entry. Sorry, I told y’all I thought I was becoming narcoleptic.
So anyway, where was I? As some know, we wound up having to cancel out Saturday because JJ, of all things to have when you’re pushing thirty, has the chicken pox.. and I also don’t want him anywhere near me because I’ve never had any of the usual icky childhood diseases. So that pretty much hosed that, and I didn’t get to go to the Alex Chilton show at the Hi-Tone either, and then Tennessee loses the most important ballgame of the year, and the whole weekend pretty much sucked overall. We are maybe going to try it again next weekend – except I can’t remember how long chicken pox stays contagious? – or the weekend after that, I’ll mass-email as soon as I know something for sure. I am trying to figure out how to password-protect a possible new part of the site that would contain all such folly… actually I wish you could do a password-questionnaire, that would be amusing… only those well-versed in Zone trivia (or me) would ever be able to enter, hehehe.
Anyway, so, the only good thing about the weekend really was that my new neighbors have obviously finally gotten the hint and quieted down a bit (or someone in the neighborhood’s complained, dunno). Actually that whole scene is beginning to be a little more interesting, somewhat along Melrose Place lines, once over the weekend I chanced to hear one noisy loud female questioning someone about when so-and-so had sex with so-and-so and that she was going to kick the last so-and-so’s butt, and then the next night late in the evening there was an unhappy young lady running up and down the street after some guy literally wailing “(insert guy name here), why are you doing this to me??” Much more of this and I won’t miss so much the fact that Melrose won’t be coming back on TV, heh.
Anyhow… the weather just turned cold! Not cold enough that I’m not still in shorts, but definitely cooler. The wind picked up a lot in the night and my neurotic dogs totally freaked, the goofy yellow dog who wasn’t scared of thunderstorms until he was about two years old now gets under the covers so he won’t see lightning – which is fine because if he’s under the covers he stays still, unlike when he doesn’t and fidgets and moves around every 10 seconds, usually in the vicinity of my head – but there was no lightning last night, not even hardly any rain, and still he got his head under the covers. The two mutts used to only be scared of thunderstorms, now they get upset when it’s simply raining. Baby’s fear is a little more understandable seeing as how she once was a stray street dog – Dobie, of course, has never been left outside or anything even remotely such in his entire spoiled rotten life, and I can vouch for that entirely seeing as how he was born on my living room floor lo all these almost five years ago (I cannot believe he’s about to turn five) and has barely been outside of the house nor far from a comfy couch or bed since, sheesh.
Speaking of Dobie, next time you’re in the dishwashing, scouring pad section of your local grocery store or whatnot, be sure and look for The Original Dobie. I am not kidding. You’ll see…
Well, what else, this probably belongs on the Music & Movies page but getting one page a week or so updated is about my limit right now, I recently picked up and Greggie and I have been enjoying (gotta love that speakerphone and the Breits’ WATS line!) and getting inspired immensely by an awesome CD, and you’ll never believe by whom… Paul Revere & The Raiders’ The Essential Ride, ’63-’67. This is the one of all to get and those of you music snobs who are raising an eyebrow right now will likely change your tune if you give it a whirl yourselves. Now, I have always dug the Raiders, definitely one of American rock’s most overlooked bands ever, since I was a little bitty kid and had a crush on Phil “Fang” Volk (a rare time I ever had a crush on a bass player) second only to my Davy Jones crush in early childhood. Tho I had all the “teenybopper-fare” albums too, my dad had actually purchased a copy of their first album in the ’60s which seriously kicked some early Rolling Stones butt by far, and I literally cut my baby musical teeth on that album… probably the only two year old in the country who knew all the words to that one and the Broadway cast recording album of Hair. (giggle) So anyway, since I haven’t had a working turntable (well, that’s not true, I have one, there’s just no place to put it and it’s not been plugged in in years), I probably haven’t listened to any old Raiders stuff save for what came on the radio now and again in years. But now, listening to it with a much-jaded and broadened musical ear after all these years have passed – whoa. In the words of Greggiepoo, their guitarist Drake Levin was/is a guitar genius – if you listen beyond the pop, so to speak, you get to listen to some absolute genius guitar riffage. Not to mention the various nuances of the rest of the band – I was just amazed, such things had never really occurred to me when it came to PR&TR. I was also super-digging the earliest, bluesy kinda stuff… I’ll be here all night if I go on about specifics as to why this album has just knocked me over so, but take it from me, it’s just fascinating and really cool. (This is a great example of why I love music so – even the oldest stuff you’ve had for years can turn around and surprise you one day, almost like something totally new!) It’s also just a really cool CD, I picked it specifically over others that were available because it had several of what-were-then filler cuts on my favorite album of all, Spirit of ’67, and that was just really neat to have along with the big hits, and some other stuff that I’d never heard before. It also has a booklet full of anecdotes and tales from most everyone in the band that is just a really cool read, and here’s some trivia – the Raiders’ first album was not only the first rock & roll album Columbia put out that sold tons of copies, it also was probably the first major-label album to come out that had the “F” word within the grooves! That was one of the anecdotes, how somehow that managed to slip by the label in the background of the Raiders’ version of The Kingsmen’s “Louie Louie” (and was on the same album that I cut my aforementioned baby music teeth on), and yup, it’s there all right – you can barely make it out, but it’s there, heh. Another little anecdote I enjoyed was when Phil Volk mentioned running into David Letterman bass player Will Lee and he was like talking to Will Lee like he was God, saying he couldn’t even begin to touch what Lee does, and Lee told him that was nuts because he (Lee) had learned how to play bass by watching Phil Volk on the Raiders’ show, Where the Action Is, every afternoon when he was a kid and that Phil was like the master when it came to bass.
Anyway, lots of cool things like that and the CD is just a total treat for any crazed musician, it may take a listen or two but you’ll get what has us so fascinated eventually, it’s just supercool and definitely, to me anyway, is the essential and definitive compilation of Raiders swag. I dunno if the fascination is as much because it’s so great, or just the fact that we sort of missed the point until now about how good they really were! I also have managed to land something I thought I never would, which will be on its way here soon, which is a copy of the aforementioned first album, as it would seem Mark Lindsay himself is selling it via his website – way cool, can’t wait to have that one right here in my hot little hands.
Anyway… now that I’ve bored virtually everyone but the rest of the musically insane (giggle)… not much else news-wise, other than the fact I think I’m headed for a date with an esophagoscope, which is, tho not a good thing, not the worst since that just happens to be what my boss does… I think I’ve finally managed to tear up my insides irreparably, so to speak! As a smart-aleck friend sassed the other day, yes, maybe if I’d drink more of the wild cherry Capri Sun that’s always in my fridge and not so much whatever-flavor-of-the-week coffee and Coke and whatnot, maybe I could actually put away the, what an ex used to call, industrial-strength bottle of antacid I always have with me, heh. But, you know, then again it could just be stress, since I’ve had plenty of that now the last several months, so who knows. I’m sure if I actually have to go under the scope, I’ll be here complaining about it and relating the whole story in exceptional detail. (snicker)
Anyway, I really gotta go – all this work still has me snowed under for hours every night after work and I’m just pooped, plus I – much to my irritation – have to spend all day tomorrow in two dumb classes for work that I don’t really need and shouldn’t have to be wasting an entire day on, plus three other entire afternoons this month besides that, in, so I’m not only in a mood but I need to get some sleep so I won’t fall asleep during class, especially since one of tomorrow’s instructors, tho I haven’t yet met her in person, would appear from a phone conversation to be about the most humorless human being on the planet. So I’m just really looking forward to this. Talk to all awaiting parties soon, everyone have a good rest of the week on my behalf since I won’t…
And welcome to June in The Lynnster Zone. I hate summer. It’s so blasted hot in Memphis right now I could just melt. I fully intend to move somewhere someday where it’s cold, or colder, most of the time. This heat and humidity sucks, the only thing good about it is that it’s fortuitous to my, to re-coin a Greg Breit phrase, Blonde Tanned Goddessdom, so right now I’m being all blonde and tanned and goddesslike, of course.
Let’s see… I am about to die to find out what the florist tried to deliver to me today as such things maybe happen to me once in a blue moon, but guess I will find out tomorrow when they deliver it to my office… so, whoever you are if you’re reading this, I suspect you will hear from me tomorrow. Surprises just kill me so I’m somewhat like Dobie jumping around and bouncing off the proverbial ceiling wanting to know what’s come for me. Surprises kill me but I luv presents!
Let’s see, what else… well, I lost both my spare pairs of Ray-Bans within the last six months, yet one pair mysteriously reappeared this week, so that’s a good thing.
Other than the fact that it’s summer and it’s hot, I am really digging driving down Madison these days, it’s too cool now with the great big giant Gibson Les Paul hanging high up in the air over Strings ‘N Things, my old stomping grounds the late lamented Antenna Club across the street, the Big Pig down further, Ardent a little on further down. I happened to be stopped in front of Strings ‘N Things waiting on someone to turn the other day when who pulls up beside me in the other lane but good ol’ Stevie Kane, who pointed up at the giant Cherry Sunburst up there and we just nodded and smiled. They have been talking about putting this humongous neon “Welcome to Memphis”-type thingy on top of that Lone Star place off the interstate bridge to be seen when you come across the river into downtown from Arkansas, I’m thinking they should have put that huge Les Paul up there because it just looks really really cool.
Anyway… my newly restored old vintage Barbie has arrived back in Memphis, you should click here (sorry, link’s gone) to view some before and after photos, she’s going up for sale on eBay tonight which is why there’s 20+ pics up there, but it’s kinda neat to look at. And that’s about it for now. ’til later…
All praise to The Phantom 96.1 for saving the music day in Memphis! Totally by accident I found out this radio station existed, and in the wake of 96X’s sudden exit, what a relief! It wasn’t that long ago that it occurred to me how cool it was that there was a generation of young people in this area who actually had never been without, since reaching their teens, 24-hour alternative radio (unlike me who had to scrabble thru most of the Eighties trying to find decent indie radio and usually the good stuff was only on in the late nights) and then 96X goes and bites the dust, apparently for no other reason other than someone thought Memphis needed yet another oldies station. So, I’m like, happy again now… only problem is this station, if I’m correct, is located somewhere in northern Mississippi and it’s real hard to pick up at times in the city. I am definitely with the chick who wrote to The Memphis Flyer asking where we could send donations for this great station to up their wattage!!!
So, here’s a bit of completely irrelevant trivia… as I was driving home from Buckley’s tonight I was listening to said cool radio station and they played The Knack classic “My Sharona”, so, anyway, did you know that The Knack’s lead singer, Doug Fieger, is the brother of famed attorney Geoffrey Fieger (most famous for representing Jack Kevorkian in numerous court cases and most recently The Jenny Jones Show’s defense in the Amedure case)? Well, he is. I wondered this for years because of the resemblance of the two, and finally one Sunday in my local paper’s issue of Parade magazine, that question got asked and duly answered as I’d suspected. So now you know.
Well, anyhow, I still haven’t remembered what the other great quote from the other day was, plus I got this really cool and funny tho rather backhanded compliment the other day but darned if I can remember exactly how that was phrased either, both of which I wanted to share with y’all, I swear I’m getting Alzheimer’s. I’m also currently investigating a song that appeared on a mix tape a friend sent me a while back – I can’t find the cassette case so I don’t know who it is – but this guy has totally got Paul Westerberg’s voice, almost 100%, that is so weird, neat and good (it’s a great song), but weird.
Almost all my TV shows, what few I watch, had their season finales this week (big Melrose end is next week, and every single thing in the Melrose Place auction on Amazon.com has gotten waaaay out of my price range, sigh). For those who don’t know (and stop reading if you don’t want to know how the Friends season finale turned out) Ross and Rachel got wasted drunk and wound up married in Las Vegas a la Dennis Rodman/Carmen Electra style, so now I have to wait until fall to see how that all turns out, yeesh. If only that were the only complicated thing in my life…
Well, I’m sure I’ll have something more substantial later on, but for now this is all the admittedly rather pithy backwash of the week I have to scribble tonight plus I’m super tired, so ’til later…
