We Are All Stars

Oh my god it's late and I haven't been able to sleep for some reason. I hope this post makes sense, but I've been listening to the song Heart Shaped Glasses and love it. Just had some thoughts I wanted to put down.


I know that Marilyn Manson intends to shock me. I know that stomping onstage back in the early days with a bloody corset and thong that he wants you to notice him. Instead of being shocked I was someone who, no matter how bourgeois I am and was, have always found Marilyn Manson hilariously refreshing. He never scared me. I loved his horror-glam image and all of the commotion he caused with middle America. To be honest, as I stayed up writing papers I loved listening to his music. There was something so textured and theatrical about it. I found nothing wrong with him. I certainly didn't take him seriously enough to fear him. I didn't think that listening to his music would make me a Satanist. How could someone who sings about human relationships make me evil? Of course, I was not raised in a house that believed in Christianity or the evil characters in that institution so I have never felt a need to rebel against any kind of God. Satan means nothing to me. The only thing I fear are those people in this world that would think to carry out acts in the name of religion, whether it's the church of Satan or someone who is supposed to represent "good". If someone wants to worship the devil, as long as he's not hurting me or anybody else (or animals) then I have no quarrel with any of it. This life is a struggle and we all need something to help us make sense of it all. At the end of the day, I have to accept that I will never know what's out there until I get there. It's taken me years to really be ok with that, but that's where I am now. Anyhoo…

I can remember eating out at the TGIF's on University Drive and my waiter was clearly a member of the Huntsville subculture: black hair, tattoos, black attire. As he approached my table I noticed his flair: MM, NIN, and Misfits pins. Something which, even before seeing Office Space, I found funny. He had a cheery disposition, even jumping up and down to tell me that he was going to see MM soon. I remember thinking, aren't you supposed to be sullen if you're a "Goth?" Huntsville Goths seems extremely non-threatening to me. Perhaps without urban grit to keep them stern and isolated they tend to have an endearing quality of approachability and a sense of acceptance. Yeah, maybe typical of America, Goth and Punk and all that tends to be more of a fashion statement than anything else. I guess if you want real Goth you have to go to Germany where Christianity is not mainstream and if you want real Punk you have to go to London where you live on the street and shoot heroin. I don't claim to know. I'm just a suburban chick who spends too much time observing people and consuming shit with the money I make at a software company. As anyone who cares to read this blog knows, J and I tend to find many things about the south outstanding and when I told her the story of my waiter we both passed doting glances and smiled. "Hey, y'all! Chake me out, ahm Gawth!"

Where was I? Oh yes. MM. When he was scapegoated for Columbine I rolled my eyes. How could music truly cause anyone to do anything so vile? And how many times will humankind blame music for people being weak and fucked up? When I watched Michael Moore's documentary Bowling for Columbine I was impressed with MM's reaction to being asked what he would say to the killers if he could have spoken to them on the day of the shooting: "I wouldn't say a thing. I would just listen to them ... and that's what nobody did." I remember thinking that that made so much sense that it almost seemed wrong.

Don't get me wrong, I really hate the fact that lately he's been keen to criticize some of my favorite bands claiming they are poor imitations of him. I think others would agree that he seemed to be making an attempt to make the news during a lull in his career. I don't like artists talking shit about other artists trying to make their own mark on this world. Perhaps these artists don't imitate MM in such an effective way as he imitates Alice Cooper and David Bowie, but I wish he would shut up about all that.

Whatever. I picked up the latest Spin with MM on the cover and after reading the article I couldn't help but once again feel a strong connection with this lunatic who lives his life like one gigantic dada play. When you cut away the blood, the gore, the ego, and the absinthe, MM is just a hopeless romantic who craves that one person he can feel as one with. When you cut away the need for isolation, the neuroses, and the obsession with music and bands, I'm no different. How can you be an evil person when you want nothing in the world but to love and be loved? Aren't we all just trying to make the best of a shitty situation on this earth. As long as we don't intentionally hurt anyone in the process where is the sin?

I guess my point is MM shocks me like he does most of America though perhaps for different reasons. Despite the fact that I drown in my own consumerism and fear, I can't help but listen and understand when he has something to say. -K

The Same but Different

During my trip to England last week I was hoping to get a feel for the music scene. Unfortunately I did not get to listen to any radio except for about five minutes in a cab. During those five minutes the DJ said after talking for some time, “Oh it looks like we only have about two minutes left to play Enrique Iglesias which is not necessarily a bad thing”. Ha! Our second night both A and I were up in the middle of the night for hours watching music videos. I wrote down the videos that came on in an hour to give you a feel for how similar and how different the music scene is.
Cherry Ghost
Enrique Iglesias
Robin Thicke
Take That
Calvin Harris (getting lots of press there)
Arctic Monkeys
The Killers
Mutya Buena

Then to my great surprise, more than one of the BBC television stations ran performances from Glastonbury so I stayed up way too late on Friday and Saturday to watch the coverage. On Friday I saw performances by:
Rufus Wainwright
Mumm-Ra
Kasabian
Amy Winehouse
Arcade Fire
Arctic Monkeys
The Automatic
Gogol Bordello
The Hold Steady

Amy Winehouse was only as good as her band. The broadcasted performance was actually her second of the day at the festival and I think she was drunk. If the band hadn’t been chugging along, she would have been in trouble. She covered the song Cupid, which actually was the highlight of the set. Gogol Bordello goes into the unnecessary category. They call themselves gypsy punk but in the end it’s polka music. It’s not that I’m against polka music but let’s just call it what it is folks. Even though I know that Arcade Fire gets tons of critical praise and is a favorite of David Bowie, there is something about their look, the number of people in the band and their attitude in interviews that just makes me angry and not even able to have an open mind and listen to the music. The highlight of what I saw was a band called The Automatic doing a cover of Kanye West’s Gold Digger. NME reports it will be released so look for it. This version contains flute and screaming punk vocals.

On Saturday I saw less of the coverage which included the following:
Iggy Pop
The Klaxons
The Pigeon Detectives
Biffy Clyro
The Killers
The Kooks

Much to A’s chagrin and my delight, they ran The Killers’ entire set. The BBC announcers called them “the best British band to come out of Las Vegas. I thought it was interesting that the band played up the Las Vegas schtick maybe because that doesn’t hold much water with American audiences. Brandon Flowers told the audience that they were from the “jewel of the Mohave Desert” as he stood in front of the audience in a gold lame and rhinestone suit. Fireworks and a beautiful light show punctuated the beginning and ending of the set and the crowd and commentators loved it. Here is a rough setlist:
Sam’s Town
Enterlude
When You Were Young
Bones
Somebody Told Me
Smile Like You Mean It
Jenny was a Friend of Mine
Uncle Jonny
The River is Wild
Read My Mind
On Top
Bling
Glamorous Indi Rock n Roll
Mr. Brightside
My List
Too Good to Be True (cover)
Joy Division Cover
For Reasons Unknown
All These Things I Have Done

It was a treat to get to see almost the same set I saw last month in St. Louis, but up close and personal and with more flare. --J

Avoid the Outdoors

I had been wringing my hands over buying tickets to Bonnaroo this year. It's close to where both K and I used to live in the South so having a place to stay wouldn't be an issue. For a number of reasons we passed up the opportunity. Courtesy of AT&T I was able to watch both Kings of Leon and Lily Allen's sets online and decided that I just need to get over this fear that I have that I am missing something at these festivals. When they pan the crowd it looks like torture standing in those crowds. I am reminded of my experience in a Warped Tour crowd a few summers ago when my feet left the ground in the middle of a sea of people and I saw no clear exit route.

While Bonnaroo just looked and was damn hot, I was in England this week and I followed all of the coverage of the Glastonbury Festival. As the pic on this post can explain, it's not hot, but instead rainy. Having to pack knee-high rubber boots to deal with the mud sounds like the worst of both worlds. The London News reported in Friday's news that a stream at the festival site had been "cordoned off because revelers had turned it toxic" with their alcohol and drug laced urine. Maybe I'm too old or too drug-free to understand Glastonbury. Give me a smoky nightclub over that any day. --J

Three Degrees of Separation

Check out The Used's new single Bird and the Worm. In spite of the high production and Bert McCracken annoying me, I unexpectedly really like it. The Used are from Orem, Utah and I have to travel to that area of the country for work very frequently. For about a year I had been meaning to ask the one person in the office out there that might care about music if Bert was a local celebrity and if by chance this person knew the McCracken family. I finally got around to asking and sure enough there is a connection closer than I had imagined between this person and Bert. I was told that Bert is a bit of a black sheep because he has shunned his roots. Therefore, I don't think The Used will be playing BYU anytime soon. --J

Sammy Hagar in St. Louis

Sammy Hagar played The Pageant last Wednesday to debut the dvd "Sammy Hagar and the Wabos: Livin’ It Up! Live in St. Louis" which was recorded at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater in 2006. The show was broadcast on KSHE and XM. Despite having a ten-second delay, yesterday one of the djs from KSHE said they had to take the Sammy interview off-air because of his penchant for cursing. Hey, that's what you get with Rock 'n Roll, right? -K

Red Clay Singalong

Last Friday night a bunch of us ended up at my friend S's house where C bobbled and giggled, L smoked her cloves, and G and I passed the acoustic guitar back and forth and sang Wish You Were Here (which to date is the only complete song I can actually "play" on guitar). At some point S disappeared into the back of the house then reappeared carrying a good condition maroon Fender Stratocaster his friend had given him because he felt like dropping out of music for a while. Can you believe that? Who in the world gets a guitar like that for free? Eventually, we all sang along to G's guitar strums as he moved through a selection of Pink Floyd, The Eagles, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and Heart. Sheetchyeah. -K

Our Women

When K and I were drinking through the awful Snowden set at the Kings of Leon show last month, at some point K laughed and said to me, “God we are misogynists, aren’t we?!” Yes, we can be hard on women in music but I think K’s recent post about Brandi Carlile and Amy Winehouse proves that we also can support our sex as well. I have been listening to the Amy Winehouse record and I don’t really like the big hit “Rehab”, but do love You Know I’m No Good, Back to Black, and Love is a Losing Game. I also have a few ladies on regular rotation. I had forgotten my iPod recently and had to listen to what I had in my office. A friend had given me Mary J Blige, The Breakthrough to listen to and I hadn’t because I was way burned out on her cover of One with U2 . A. was obsessed with that song last summer and I had had enough. Left with silence as my other option, I gave The Breakthrough a try and have been puzzled by it ever since. I love the first song on the record, No One Will Do. What I am puzzled by or maybe what intrigues me is the self-help/preachy nature of this record. Mary J has gotten her act together and goddamnit she is going to help all of her fans do the same. Is this Oprah or Mary J? I don’t’ know if this is different than her other records but I don’t think I’ve listened to another artist that writes in this style. I keep coming back even though I don’t need Mary J to help me out of a destructive relationship. I unexpectedly like the music.

The other CD that’s in heavy rotation is Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins’ Rabbit Fur Coat. Jenny Lewis is the frontwoman for Rilo Kiley. This record is really dreamy and quiet, which I love, especially the song Happy. It’s as if during the recording sessions, there was someone in the room next to them that they were trying hard not to disturb. I like the harmonies on it as well. The other interesting song on it is a cover of Handle with Care by the Traveling Wilburys. Joining her on this track are Death Cab for Cutie’s Ben Gibbard and Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst. Could there be a more perfect person singing the words “handle me with care” than Conor Oberst? I like some of his stuff but he always sounds to me like he has the razorblade poised at his wrist. He is the voice of desperation.

There could probably not be two records more different than the two discussed here, but both interesting in their own right. --J

Earl Greyound - Times Two

Saturday night we went to see a band and got distracted by a dancer. Being in such a small club we were probably about three feet from the stage, and about three people deep. In front of the stage was this lone guy, his girl hanging back from him. He reminded me of a younger version of that character in Office Space that gets into the car accident and creates the Jump to Conclusions game. It’s Saturday night and this guy is dressed like he just walked out of an office building and his desk job straight to the club and nothing but the front row would do. When Earl Greyhound started, he let loose. I saw the Pete Townshend windmill arm, I saw several jumps up in the air that bordered on an inflexible person’s attempts to do a toe touch, and so much more. It was strange and once in awhile even the band couldn’t ignore him. This caused quite a predicament. Being that close to the band and enjoying the music, you want to appear to be interested but I couldn’t help but be very distracted and every time I looked at K, we burst into laughter.

We saw the band at Vintage Vinyl in the afternoon and then at Lemmons on Saturday night and I give the day an UNEXPECTED review. Check them out when they visit your town. --J

Bands Reunited

VH1 will be running a marathon of their show Bands Reunited next Saturday, June 16th. If you didn’t see this show the first time around, check it out. Each episode focuses on a single 80’s band as a VH1 reporter tracks down the members to see if they will reunite for a one night only gig. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll find out who the asshole in the band was that made them break up in the first place. --J

The Boys of Summer

In-between meetings this morning I stopped my friend B at work who is a huge Cardinals fan and posed this question—if you had to pick a song that would play as you were walking up to bat, what would it be? He said he had spent hours considering this, and hadn’t come up with a good answer. Last night the family and I went to a Cardinals game and it got me thinking about the first game H and I attended as we contemplated moving to St. Louis four years ago. Not being much of a sports fan, what kept me interested in the game were the songs picked by the batters to announce that they are now at bat. What would my song be? This seemed WAY more important than what happened at bat since this was after all, their calling card. During the game I narrowed it down to two songs – The Jackson 5’s I Want You Back or The Clash’s London Calling which both have distinctive openers. Last year when my nephew D came to visit and we went to a game, he and I both rolled our eyes and snickered when Scott Rolen took the field to Limp Bizkit’s Rollin’. He could be the best player in the world but it was all diminished by his lame and weirdly obvious choice. A couple of years ago when I was visiting my friend R in Baltimore who is a big baseball fan I posed this question to him and with a blink of an eye he answered, “AC/DC, Thunderstruck”. Ahh, his choice made me realize why this would never be a real dilemma:
1. I’m a girl.
2. It didn’t even occur to me to pick a song based on bravado or intimidation because again, I’m a girl.
I was planning on writing down the names of all of the songs that the Cardinals used to walk to the plate but most of the songs were hip-hop so I was mostly clueless except for recognizing Brass Monkey and Ridin’. But one Cardinal took it to the next level and paid dearly for his actions. Catcher Gary Bennett walked to the plate to the sound of a cowbell. Yes, his song was Nazareth’s Hair of the Dog. I don’t know if it was the cowbell or the chorus lyrics, “now you’re messin with a son of a bitch” but the third pitch hit him in the head and he almost had to be taken off the field. You don’t throw down Nazareth like that and expect to walk away without consequences. --J

P.S. B sent me this link to a good article regarding this topic. Check it out.

Gerard Engaged, K Mourns

Every one around me is now either engaged or married. I'm sorry, but for a perpetual bachelorette this is really depressing. This morning, before I'd had a chance to drink my morning coffee, I got the text message I had been hoping to never receive: "Gerard is engaged…" Yes, folks, Gerard Way has gotten engaged. I realize I'm 32, but as I was driving back from the grocery store today something compelled me to put on I Don't Love You from The Black Parade. I actually got water eyed thinking back on the summer of 2005 when I tried desperately to find him and beguile him with my charm. The watery eyes could also be from a migraine I've had since Wednesday, but whatever. All I can say is that at least Ville is now single. Here's to dwelling in one's own misery and aloneness. -K

Brandi and Amy

Rarely do I see Vh1's You Oughtta Know segment and think "oh yeah- I'm SO downloading that song." Usually, the featured artists are so sickeningly mainstream like The Fray and Hinder. And, let's face it, Vh1 can run a song into the ground. For a while there Augustana's Boston was played so long that I would feel a rage bubble up inside of me every time I caught the segment. Lately, however, I've found two artists thanks to it: Brandi Carlile and Amy Winehouse.
Firstly, Englander Amy is the antithesis to everything that is acceptable in this country that I couldn't help but be fascinated by her. She drinks heavily, smokes heavily, and is covered with tattoos and presents herself with a no apologies attitude. I bought her album and really dig it. Highlights are Rehab, Me & Mr. Jones and Love Is a Losing Game. Mark Ronson, who has produced music for Robbie Williams, has produced several songs on the album. Mark is also the older brother of DJ Samantha Ronson, who lately has been connected to Lindsey Lohan.
Then there's Brandi Carlile, who is the complete opposite of Amy. She is a singer/songwriter from the NW part of the country and (gasp!) her music has been featured on Grey's Anatomy. That alone would usually be a reason for me to turn it off, but after listening to The Story, I can't help but say that it is worth downloading. She reminds me of Melissa Etheridge in many ways. When the song starts to rock out you will know exactly what I'm talking about.
So, my little bug has been sounding a little Sapphic lately, which is also a sign that there is something different going on in my head. Hell, as long as the music is good who cares? -K

The Death Knell for Albums?

I recently read a Q&A with the actor Vinnie Jones where he was asked about favorite albums and he basically said he didn’t buy albums. He liked buying individual songs and that’s what’s on his iPod. Yeah, I believe my iTunes library is in some ways the equivalent to my old 45 collection. When K and I were driving home from the KoL show last week at The Pageant (sigh), I put on a playlist that had a mix of singles I bought from iTunes. One of the songs was O.P.P., for which she responded, “Are you kidding me?” Anyway, Naughty by Nature had the good taste to sample The Jackson 5, but I digress.

When I was sitting in the Nashville airport yesterday morning, CNN reported that some artists like Led Zeppelin and AC/DC were holding out putting their music in iTunes because then people wouldn’t buy the whole album and CDs would die a faster death. I guess to counteract the decline, lists have been emerging of great albums. The Definitive 200 is a list that the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame released and the website states that these are the 200 “ranked albums that every music lover should own”. There are records on this list that I would NEVER want to listen to from start to finish. However, Time came up with a good list that I have been working my way through. In fact, my nephew D and I listened to Sticky Fingers on our way back from the KoL show in Chicago. It holds up mighty well. Any comments on these lists? --J