Category: Music

Cover Your Ears

“That kid’s a terrible dancer!”

When I said that to my wife I was just kidding, but only a bit. Many of the little kids wildly dancing around in circles at this month’s Irish 2000 Festival, really were terrible dancers.

But could it be that some of them couldn’t hear the music?

A number of parents had outfitted their little squirts with earmuff style hearing protection to guard their wee ears from the Screaming Orphans up on stage.

I’ve seen this before, but never have I seen so many kids with the colorful protective devices. And they were side-by-side with just as many (or more) young kids without them.

Now, this is not the place for my observations about the parents. It would be wrong to make snap judgements based on their appearance, and I would never suggest that the ear muff crowd looked like insufferably annoying people. That would be wrong, wouldn’t it?

Anyway, I trust that the ear muff children will grow up enjoying the benefits that come with having better hearing: they will be more attentive in school, get better grades, go to more prestigious universities, earn more money and subsequently be better citizens.

In the end, the ear muff parents will have the last laugh against those fools that allowed their kids to enjoy themselves bare-eared without the encumbrance of those ridiculous looking but extremely practical accessories. The rewards in life will not go to the best dancers, but to the ones with the clearest hearing.

Warming Up

It was great to see Neko Case at The Egg Wednesday night.

I bought the tickets in January, so the waiting seemed interminable, but the payoff was a tremendous show. Our seats were great, too: second row center. It’s nice to be up close, not just because it makes for a more intimate experience, but it’s cool to see what the musicians are doing — and you can their tattoos.

On Neko case’s arms is tattooed the phrase, Scorned for Timber, Beloved of the Sky. Turns out it’s the name of a painting she loves. Thanks again, Google.

I credit Neko Case with teaching me to be respectful of warmup acts.

In 2003 I went to see Wilco in Montreal. As we waited for the band to come on we, stood around in the back of the theatre drinking beer and talking loudly (how typically American), paying no attention to the opening band.

In short order a woman marched forward to admonish us for our boorish behavior. She did so in a very politely Canadian way, saying something like, “Excuse me, but you’re making it very difficult for us to enjoy the show with the noise you’re making.” That always makes it worse, when people scold you politely.

And who was this singer she felt so strongly about? Neko Case. It was several years later that I discovered how much I loved her music — and I still kick myself for completely missing her show.

So now I arrive on time — and in this case enjoyed a set by The Dodos, a San Francisco band that I’m glad I didn’t miss.

Craptacular

I love the Super Bowl, but I hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate hate Super Bowl halftime shows. There has never been one that I’ve ever wanted to watch, even if a band that I like is performing.

The halftime show is the crown jewel of the mind numbing excess that threatens to smother the game itself — and nothing would make me happier than to see it eliminated.

And it’s not just about hating the show — even though the music usually sucks.

A normal NFL halftime is twelve minutes long — but you can expect Super Bowl halftime to last upwards of 30 minutes. This is objectionable because all year long players get a short breather between halves; why change this for the most important game of the year?

OK, maybe that’s extreme. Perhaps we should allow some time to accommodate the eating and socializing folks like to do at halftime, so let’s compromise and say 20 minutes. BUT NO MUSIC! Instead, let’s have more analysis. More replays. More heartfelt features. Yes, make halftime more like pregame — which in my opinion can never be too long.

Speaking of the Super Bowl, I love those I’m Going to Disney World commercials as much as I hate halftime. Here’s the first one, with Phil Simms in 1987:

Movie Music

I recently saw The World’s End, the latest of Edgar Wright’s Simon Pegg/Nick Frost movies. Thumbs up!

Something that really caught my attention was a very brief clip of  the 1990 song The Only Rhyme That Bites which samples the opening theme to the 1958 Western, The Big Country. Give it a listen; it’s one of the most spectacular and iconic pieces of movie music ever composed.

Epic movie themes have fallen from favor recently; when’s the last time you heard a film score that was truly memorable? And while people like John Williams and James Horner have done tremendous work in recent years, it seems more and more films use popular music to help tell the story — and in some cases act as a crutch to a lousy story.

Mosh Pit Hero

For much of the weekend it felt that I’d been beaten with a cricket bat. Cricket bat? Yes, cricket bats are funnier than baseball bats. Beaten with baseball bats implies extreme violence; cricket bats say it was jolly good fun.

At Mountain Park in Holyoke, there is a gently sloping hill where you can spread out a blanket or open up your folding chair and enjoy a pretty good view of concerts. But it’s soooo far away up there. These days, I prefer to be as close to the stage as possible. This is fine if you’re seeing The Decemberists, whose fans are mostly thoughtful hipstery artistic folks, but much more hazardous at a Dropkick Murphys concert like last Friday night.

Naturally, the area right in front of the stage opened up into a mosh pit, and I  must admit that I couldn’t resist jumping into the middle of things. Here’s what it looked like:

mosh

To say I got what I deserved would be an understatement. I was knocked on my ass several times, had my sunglasses broken, and I woke up the next morning with bruised ribs and a bump on my head. When in Rome, right?

So, the big question is something I’m asking with greater frequency lately: am I getting too old for this sh*t?

Segue Fever

Thirty years after the spinning my last record as a college radio DJ, I still hear music in terms of what songs go well together. That sort of segue, based either on a musical or thematic link, is what made commercial radio great at progressive rock stations in the 70s — and something that’s mostly disappeared in today’s tightly formatted radio where the DJ has little role in picking music.

Oh, well.

Anyway, I found this song by Lorde, Royals, quite striking — and much more compelling than most of the crap on mainstream radio. And it’s a nice match with The Imagined Village’s take on Hard Times in Old England, featuring Billy Bragg.

iScrewed

Here’s a news flash: iPods are not water resistant.

ipodI sort of ruined my iPod at a party we hosted recently when the skies opened up and drenched us (twice) with torrential rain. The iPod was feeding some portable speakers, and it seemed to be in a safe spot, but not safe enough as I realized when it fritzed out.

Yes, it went into the bag of rice, which is what everybody on the internet says to do with your wet electronics. I briefly considered prying it open to dry out; there are a lot of YouTube videos that show how to do this  — with a guitar pick of all things — but I chickened out.

So after the rice treatment it turns out that the darn thing still works, except the screen doesn’t light up. You can read the screen, it’s just very dark.

Serves me right for being careless, but it could have been worse; for example, I could have dropped it in the toilet. No bag of rice can fix that.

Guitar Hero

Did I ever tell you about the time I competed head to head on the same stage with guitar legend Steve Vai? Well, gather around the blog and hear this TRUE STORY.

When I was in 11th grade at Carle Place High School, the student association put on a big talent show. This was 1978, so naturally, it was done in the style of the Gong Show. I don’t remember too many of the acts, but my personal favorite was the group who dressed up as punks and lip synced God Save the Queen by the Sex Pistols. They had fake safety pins in their lips and noses and spit raisins into the crowd to simulate big nasty loogies. It was tremendous.

Then it was my turn. Though I could barely play the guitar — and not play the harmonica at all — I went out as some sort of Bob Dylanesque troubadour and croaked out a folk song that I made up on the spot. They mercifully interrupted my strange and terrible tune in short order and gonged me out.

Near the end of the show, out walked senior Steve Vai, who plugged in his guitar and brought the house down with the Star Spangled Banner. I remember arguing once with Mr. Vai in the weight room that Todd Rundgren was more talented than Jimmy Hendrix, but that night Steve Vai would have smoked them both.

A few years later, Mr. Vai was touring with Farnk Zappa and I was preparing for my illustrious career in television. If I’d only known better, maybe I too could have taken guitar lessons from Joe Satriani and ended up a rock star. Satriani also went to Carle Place High. Something in the water, maybe?