rock reads 5 November 2009

So a number of weeks ago I was setting up a display at Chain Name Bookstore where I work, and saw that Nick Hornby had released a new book – Juliet, Naked! I love just about everything Nick Hornby touches. Writing about music is a very hard art to master, but Hornby has a way with it that is both entertaining and not condescending. Juliet, Naked is basically about three people. Tucker Crowe, a Jeff Buckley-type singer/songwriter who abruptly left music two decades previous and has been in seclusion ever since; Duncan, a fanatically Crowe follower – running a Tucker Crowe website and writing numerous essays about him and at times lecturing on him; and Annie, Duncan’s long-suffering live-in girlfriend. A new Tucker Crowe album is set to be released, a collection of stripped down acoustic demos of the songs on Crowe’s greatest (and last) album Juliet called (fittingly enough) Juliet, Naked. Duncan sees this new album as a great breakthrough in learning about Tucker Crowe’s emotional breakdown at the time the album was made, and Annie thinks it lacks a lot that the finished album offered. Both post reviews on Duncan’s website (Duncan’s umpteenth, Annie’s first) and Annie begins to get e-mails from a mysterious correspondent who identifies himself as THE Tucker Crowe. An unusual friendship sparks, and the lives of Tucker, Duncan, and Annie (and a whole slew of characters from Tucker’s past) collide.

Having had a few phases of being the Obsessed Fan, I could completely identify with Duncan’s character. He did have a life outside of Tucker Crowe, but not much of one. I understand the power some musicians can have over people, and I know enough musicians that they don’t always know how to deal with that power (which on occasion results in retraining orders). The characters are in their 30s or older, dealing with getting older and growing up. Despite that, I found it a funny, charming, and entertaining read. Definite recommend. Hornby has not lost his touch.

The next up is Miss O’Dell, a rock autobiography by the “not even almost famous” Chris O’Dell. I noticed this book a few weeks ago as well, but only recently picked it up. What a fun read for a Beatles freak like me! This woman was not a groupie, not a rock star’s wife (but once Leon Russell’s old lady), but a devoted friend and employee of some of the best rock stars of the late 60’s and early 70’s. She met Derek Taylor, press agent for the Beatles and later Apple Corps, flew to London from California to see if she could break into the business. She started doing odd jobs, bought lunches, and worked her way up to personal assistant and one of the first female tour managers. She counts Pattie Boyd Harrison as one of her closest friends, and was even present at the infamous intimate dinner party when George Harrison turned to Ringo Starr and announced, “I’m in love with your wife.” She’s lived an extraordinary life, a fairy tale of a music-ridden and drug-addled sort, and lived to tell the tale. I was floored by what she witnessed and did. It’s on my shelf next to I’m With the Band by Pamela Des Barres and Under Their Thumb by Bill German. A great vacation read for the classic rock fan.

Straight Outta Lackawanna 29 October 2009

Today the hot new single “Male Prima Donna” from Scranton, PA glam act Subtle Sexuality was released. This has been hyped on Twitter for a few weeks now, and I for one am not disappointed. Kelly Kapoor is one amazing hot new artist on the PA scene, and I will take great pleasure in following her career. I didn’t think I would ever say that anyone would look good in gold spandex, but i stand corrected. While inflenced by the pop trinity of Madonna, Britney, and Beyonce, Kapoor holds her own as a glamorous and fabulous pop diva, with vocals that don’t overshadow the overall presentation. It’s a fine line, and she has found a balance.

Rumor on the Web states that the song was written about featured member Mr. Understood (who in the video looks quite fetching in black eyeliner – rawr!), but I suppose that’s up for interpretation. It does make for an interesting dynamic if true. Subtle sexual tension, eh? In the song he claims to have some “number one tracks”, but despite my Google searches I haven’t found them yet. Readers, if you find any please send them my way!

Backing up Kapoor is the sweet but salty Erin Hannon. This is the kind of girl you want on your back when boys shut car doors on your fingers. She adds a nice extra spice to the Kapoor flavor. I have a feeling we’ve only tapped the tip of the iceberg with her! Rounding out the group is Andy “Nard Dog” Bernard, who is quick to point out that he was a featured player in Cornell University’s A Capella group Here Comes Treble. He’s an… interesting choice. He means well, but if I were management I’d cut him lose soon.

Again, “Male Prima Donna” is an awesome debut, and will be topping my iTunes charts pretty soon. Keep tabs on Subtle Sexuality!

Sent from my iPhone

heathcliff, don’t you know that it’s me? 8 October 2009

Take a gander at this book cover….

Does it somehow seem… familiar?

Well, guess what. HarperCollins has released “Twilight fan” editions of Pride & Prejudice, Romeo & Juliet, and Wuthering Heights! They’ll match your Twilight set on the bookshelf!! I was nearly in hysterics when I saw this. Same font, mimicked covers… just awesome. (For those of you not in the know, Stephenie Meyer’s plots were heavily influenced by these three books, and Bella reads them in the midst of it all.)

My favorite of this new set is Wuthering Heights, because in the top right-hand corner is says, “Bella and Edward’s favorite book.” Umm… as I recall, Edward didn’t think too much of Wuthering Heights. Didn’t he see it as two awful people who were obsessed with each other? Hit a little close to home, didn’t it, Edward? I really enjoyed the book the first time I read it in high school, but on a recent attempt to re-read it I couldn’t do it. Heath and Cath bug me too much. If I’m gonna read Bronte, I’m gonna read Jane Eyre.

I showed these to a co-worker, and she proceeded to start softly singing the Kate Bush song “Wuthering Heights.” I’m more familiar with the Puppini Sisters’ cover of it, which I then had stuck in my head the rest of the day.

i had the time of my life 14 September 2009

Patrick Swayze died. Sad day. I’ve recently become enamored with the man, mainly because I was watching the North and South mini-series on YouTube for awhile until parts of the later episodes were taken down. He’s a cute guy! He’s the predecessor to Hugh Jackman – song/dance man who can also beat you to a bloody pulp. Who doesn’t love Patrick Swayze? He’s just one of those guys you don’t mind, and enjoy to watch.

When I first heard the news, I immediately thought of Mystery Science Theater 3000’s love for the man, as evidenced by their Christmas song:

It’s a family joke that I’m able to enjoy with my geekiest of friends.

But of course, I must pay tribute to the man with the iconic scene from the iconic movie. Watch Swayze move! You’ve fought well, sir. Enjoy your rest.

it’s a fiendish thingy! 9 September 2009

For people who actually know me, this comes as no surprise to them when I saw that I LOVE George Harrison. As in, when other girls my age were blasting the latest Lou Perlman creation on their Walkmans and writing “Mrs. Fatone” all over their binders, I was hijacking my parents’ Beatles records and downloading pictures of Hamburg-era George Harrison to print out and tape all over my locker, my binder, and the inside of my viola case.

In fact, here’s one of him now…

I have a dog-eared copy of his biography, numerous commemorative magazines from when he died, special editions of his albums, and my Liverpudlian accent is modeled after his adenoidal way of speaking. I picked up the guitar because of this man. And once when my grandmother was visiting, she baked a cake for his birthday and we had a little celebration. Says something about my devotion, and my grandmother’s indulgence.

It’s fitting that today I get to not only commemorate one year of trying out this here blog thing at MGJ, but I get to be all fangirly because the Beatles Remasters have finally been released! In an additional twist of fate, let me first state that the number 9 was of special significance to John Lennon, hence the remasters release date. He was born on the 9th of October, and it was the 9th of October, 1999, that I went to Tower Records and bought the re-release of Yellow Submarine, setting me on a life-changing course of Beatles, Beatles, and more Beatles. So I feel a greater power is at hand in all this.

I’ve found that you can generally tell a good deal about a person by their favorite Beatle. For the most part, George fans and I get along famously. We tend to be the people who had a very intense Beatles phase in our early teens, and became pretty decent musicians because of it. George folk are good people. We also seem to be more in the minority, and that’s fine by us! My friend Ash (a George fan, obviously) stayed on my couch for near a week while both of us were unemployed. He dug through my old VHS tapes of various Beatles-related material and we watched ALL OF IT. It was a glorious geekout. Ash, I think we bonded then.

I have every UK Beatles album, and nearly the entire solo Harrison discography on either CD or LP. (I’m missing the soundtrack to Wonderwall and Electronic Sound, but few would count either.) With the Remasters, I guess I’ll have to go back and recollect them again. I considered buying the whole set, but I can’t really afford that right now. Plus, by going piecemeal I’m guaranteed that when I’m having a bad day for the next year I’ll be able to pop by a record store and get another Beatles album. And now my parents have ideas for Christmas this year. But today, as a starting point, I’m starting with Revolver, my favorite Beatles album, with the song “Love You To” that first brought my libido’s attention to Mr. George Harrison. And I am so not kidding. Just downloaded Jim James’ cover of it, as a matter of fact. Fantastic – and it has banjo!

Listening to the Remastered version of “Love You To”, I just got the shivers when the drums (er, tabla) joined in. Yep, I think these will be okay.

I’m not proficient enough in all the technical stuff to give an honest review of the sound. But, thus far in my listening, I’m noticing a heavier bass line, and the song is definitely richer and fuller in my headphones. Listening to songs back-to-back, everything seems to “pop” more remastered. One of the record stores I follow on Twitter said that the Remasters are like the vinyl sound, and I’d tend to agree. It is great that one of the greatest bands of all time can now have CDs that match up to the look of everyone else’s. They’re one of the remaining holdouts to be reissued/remastered, and it’s just good for geeks like me to have something like this to look forward to and be excited about. The pictures on the inside are gorgeous, too!!

Tonight may very well entail some A Hard Day’s Night action. I watched HELP! recently (hence my post title) and giggled at all the one-liners that have entered the vernacular of my close group of friends. And I recently unearthed some of my Beatles library – like the book Pete Best wrote, and a book about George Harrison’s visit to southern Illinois in 1963 – so some additional giggles may be had from those. See you on the flip side.

ukulele lady like-a you 5 September 2009

On my dad’s side of the family, pretty much everybody learns ukulele. My great-grandmother Lola was a flapper, and back in the 20’s ukuleles were HOT. My grandmother Claudia picked it up, and was a Campus Queen. She taught all nine of her kids, and as many grandchildren as she could get to stay still long enough. Initially I was resistant; I was playing guitar, wasn’t that enough? No, not at all. Four years ago my friend Bain and his wife Amanda were holding a yard sale, and Bain had mentioned in passing he had an old uke for sale. Buying a uke from Bain (a locally famous musician, and a sweetheart to boot) was just the ticket. I bought the Gremlin (!) ukulele off him for $10, and haven’t looked back.

Ukes are fun little instruments. For guitarists like me, a uke is a great alternative on a trip. They’re a lot easier to just pick up, and don’t disturb the neighbors after nine o’clock (usually). In addition, my man George Harrison was an enormous fan of the instrument, and once gave Tom Petty four of them as gifts over the course of one week! (Petty’s kids loved them.)

I go through spurts with my little uke. Tonight was another one of those. My repertoire of songs for the uke is slim – I do know “Tonight You Belong To Me.” My friend Jim from the Explorers Club and I were talking one night, and found we’d both picked up the uke at about the same time, and both immediately learned “Tonight”! Bond. So there’s that, and usually a simple transcribed song I know from early guitar days. Oh, and I’ve adapted Cary Ann Hearst’s cover of “Mexico” onto uke. Lovely.

Well, in the course of looking for new songs to learn (I think I’ll be trying my hand at “I’ll See You In My Dreams”), I found the AMAZING rendition of Ennio Morricone’s most famous composition, as done by the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain. Enjoy!

quick thoughts 26 August 2009

I gave a listen to the new Imogen Heap, entitled Ellipse. Have to say, it does not grab me the way her past two solo albums have. Those grabbed me and at times made me cry they were so beautiful. I still LOVE Miss Imogen, but her latest gets more of a “meh” out of me, even with the lush orchestration and beautiful vocals. I think she could do a wee bit better. However, super pleased she is still relevant.

South African band BLK JKS’ After Robots has been a fun listen. I first heard them on a Paste sampler, and while I prefer the mix of that song, “Lakeside”, better than the one on the LP, as a whole it’s still interesting to listen to. A nice fusion of hard rock and some Middle Eastern flavor, with no doubt a little local Afrikaans inflections that I’m not sophisticated enough to know.

Amanda Blank and her I Love You seem to be following in the footsteps of Lady Gaga and Lady Sovereign, but not quite reaching their levels. Makes me think she should change her name to Lady Blank. (Lady Sov did let us down on her sophomore release, and Lady Gaga gets super irritating after a few listens.) She tends to be too adolescent for me to care too much about the music. “DJ” struck me as a monotone Justin Timberlake track. She doesn’t have his range.

Classic: A book which people praise and don’t read 14 August 2009

The title of this post is a quote from Mark Twain.

I saw a meme on Facebook of a list of 100 books, and claims the BBC thinks that most people have only read 6 off the list. This piqued my interest, so I did what the meme said and bolded all the titles I’d read, then total them up. Off of the BBC’s list, I’ve read 33. And a good number of them I intend to read at some point.

But good grief! Most people have only read 6? Not anyone I know and respect. In the first 10 I’d read 7. It got me thinking about reading and books, and my train of thought just went off from that.

I work at a bookstore. I work at a bookstore in a predominantly African-American community, so our Af-Am Lit is probably our bestsellers. A co-worker of mine mentioned today how ridiculous a lot of those books are. The most popular ones are salaciously racy, and deal with women who are the wives or girlfriends of “thugs” (or are married to pastors and have a “past” that comes back to bite them). I don’t understand the concept of how it is considered worthy of purchasing, but then again I’m not that demographic. But having to find a book called Purple Panties is just something to be mocked. It’s all fluff. And for some people, all they read is fluff.

Don’t get me wrong, a certain amount of fluff can be a good thing. Case and point: Twilight. And I’ve read enough romance novels to understand the appeal. But I like to mostly read books that cause me to think. Books that have underlying messages and themes. Books that are well-crafted and aren’t formulaic. I prefer books that stay with me after I’ve read them, and even have to put down in the middle of reading just to process what I just read. I read quite a bit of non-fiction as well, because I’m a trivia-minded person and it’s always nice to catch yet another random Mystery Science Theater 3000 reference in the midst of a book on single women of the early 20th century.

Looking over at my bookcase, I’ve known for some time I need another one. Or two. It occurred to me that my library has turned into my CD collection, where I’ve simply got so much I don’t have proper shelving for it anymore. I’ve been stacking my mass markets in odd crevices and have my writing reference books on my desk. Not to mention an unknown number of my books sitting in my parents’ storage unit. I know they at least include my Redwall series books, American Girl books, and the few Baby-Sitters Club books I didn’t give away. (By the way, Mental Floss pointed me in the direction of a delightful blog on BSC called Claudia’s Room you should check out if you are a young woman of a certain age!)

I’ve been discovering the joys of the Young Adult literature lately. As far as I can remember, YA didn’t exist when I was that age. I went through what my store labels as “independent reader” and moved right up to reading Bronte and Kerouac. YA focuses on teenage girls (let’s be realistic, most boys could care less about the majority of what that section has to offer), and goes through the usual growing pains themes with a more forward and generally darker approach. Right now, of course, the trend is teenage vampire angst, but I’ve had my fill of that, thankyouverymuch. But I did get into John Green, Lauren Myracle, and Markus Zusak. All most excellent. A good portion of YA (barring the teenage vampire angst because I just don’t know) is very well written and make good reads (barring the piece of tripe I subjected myself to a few weeks ago). But even “piece of tripe” had its own entertainment value.

Aw well. It was just something interesting to think about.

cookie monster vocals 3 August 2009

I’ve got a few more things to blog about, but this will just take a sec before I go to work.

Paste Magazine put up a blog of metal bands covering pop songs to varying degrees of success and fail. This one came in at the very bottom. Personally, I can’t STAND bands like this, screamo nonsense bands. How is this music? Paste ends their review with: Oh, to be a fly on the wall at the record label meetings where the A&R reps decide, “You know what this hardcore band needs? A Postal Service cover with breakdowns and Cookie Monster vocals.”

Bleh. Just, bleh.

random thoughts on hump day 22 July 2009

I really should have blogged about the Those Darlins show immediately after seeing them, but I didn’t. But, I can say that seeing Those Darlins at Schuba’s last Friday was revelatory. It’s fabulous to see such a great band. Me being me, I got there early enough to catch the opening acts. The Puking Pearls went on second and stuck out to me because they were so minimalist: just a singer, a chick on bass, and a dude banging a drum. But their music was fantastic. So punk.

I found myself right at the stage when Those Darlins took over. To my right was a bunch of hipster couples, and to my left was a large group of late twenties frat boy types who were super drunk but knew the words to every last song Those Darlins played. By night’s end they’d bumped into me countless times and spilled Icehouse on me during an impromptu mosh pit, but I forgave them. They were real fans.

I’ve decided that, after seeing Those Darlins live, they are like a mix of Johnny Cash, the B-52’s, and the Cramps all rolled into one trio of ladies. They’re all drop-dead Southern gorgeous, wail on their axes, and sang a “shake it” song that nearly made the whole front four rows pregnant. Watching them made me desperately want to play bass again. Don’t know when I’ll have the means to buy a bass, but I’ve wanted one for years. It’ll happen. I love seeing a band that is this refreshing in it’s retro-ness. A definite must-see if you’re on the fence.

I acquired the Escala CD this last week. They’re a pop string quartet that appeared on one of those British talent reality shows. All girls, too. They recorded the piece “Palladio” by Karl Jenkins, recognizable for it’s use in the DeBeers “A Diamond is Forever” commercials. It brought back a slew of memories for me hearing it. I have vivid memories of watching said commercials as a kid, wondering and imagining what my future married life would be like. In the early 90’s when DeBeers was starting that “shadows” campaign in their commercials, my imagined future consisted of moussed hair, beige furniture, and big shoulder pads in power suits. I guess my future husband resembled a member of the Brat Pack. Weird.

That train of thought led me to think of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, and how “Winter” makes me think of baking Pillsbury Christmas cookies in Ugly Christmas Sweaters. Not that I’ve done that. I can’t find the commercial I’m thinking of on YouTube, but it was on our VHS of “Mickey’s Christmas Carol” my mom taped off ABC, and we didn’t bother to fast forward through the commercials, so they eventually ended up being part of the experience. That VHS came into existence nearly 20 years ago, and has since bitten the dust. Alas.