Get 'Em Out By Friday

Enough of that boring bullshit (oops don't mean AG's Caturday post.  I meant MY last post).  Time for some boring music posting!!!  Even if the post is titled for a Friday, yet posted somewhat after Friday.  I had to leave the computer!!  I know that's hard to conceptualize.

Last week, I went to see the Heartless Bastards play at Turner Hall, and they were superb.  But the opening bands, Peter Wolf Crier and Builders & Butchers, were also quite fine.  I wound up spending much of my drinking money on CDs by the bands.  It was awesome.

I started a post about it, then real life made me stop.  Fucking real life.  If I was a wingnut, I could get that sweet sweet wingnut welfare to just write and drink all day long, ahh, the Doughbob life for me!

But the show made me wonder what the hell is wrong with me.  There I was, standing in front of the stage with people half my age.  Yes, I was the creepy old guy watching the band.  Other people my age don't bother anymore, those old Boston CDs are good enough for them, and you never have to worry about seeing them live.  Why the fuck do I need to go see bands constantly, and not proper old-guy bands like the Rollling Stones, where you pay 200 bucks for a ticket and have a chair to sit in; but loud bands who never get played on the radio and you have to stand up to see them.  WTF?

Soul Asylum has a song that goes "There's a ringing in my ears that's heaven sent" and that's always true.  After a night watching some obscure band, I am usually tired and my legs hurt and I am probably hungover, but also energized and less muddle-headed and more cheerful.    But really, couldn't I get the same results through modern pharmacology, like other people my age?



Changing things up, gonna do the random from my new music playlist.  Tracks added in the last 10 weeks:

1.  Don't Pull Me Over, Tom Petty.  From Mojo, his new album, this track really stands out from the rest of the album, as a reggae based song about legalizing marijuana. Can't frankly remember whether they played it at Summerfest this year, but does it matter?

Petty was lumped in with the skinny tie movement when he released his first couple of albums, but it seems to me confusion was created by the energy and originality and lack of cliche with which he delivered his songs.  Otherwise, it's always been straight ahead rock, with flavors of southern and blues and maybe just a bit of New Wave seasoning.

2.  8,000 Swearing Men, Chickenman.   "Tuesday they get put into the dungeon.  And Thursday is whipping day."

3.  For Now, Peter Wolf Crier.  I suppose it is a reflection of my age that I cannot see the name of this band without thinking of J. Geils.

4.  Old Haunts, Gaslight Anthem.  I have started to develop serious love for this band, and not just because the song "I'da called you Woody, Joe" is such a lovely tribute to the Clash.  Also lyrics like this song contains:

So don't sing me your songs about the good times
Those days are gone and you should just let them go
And God help the man who says
If you'd have known me when
Old haunts are for forgotten ghosts
Old haunts are for forgotten ghosts

Let it go, let it go.

5.  Devil Town, Builders & Butchers.  This was the second opening band for the Heartless Bastards.  They were a big band;; where PWC was just two guys, these were 7 or 8.


6.  The Faster The Treadmill, I Fight Dragons.  A band that incorporates 8-bit keyboard sounds, played using video game controllers.  It would be a stupid conceit if the songs weren't good.  And they are, propulsive energetic power pop.  Saw them on a walk-by at Summerfest, and they impressed enough for Young Zombie to buy the EP and a shirt.

7.  The Lamia, Genesis.  Yes, this is a recent addition; mainly because I just got the remastered versions, and so replaced the older rips.  True Story:  when I got my very first CD player (it ran on dinosaurs), Wife Sublime gave me the CD version of The Lamb for my birthday.  It was an import back then and cost 40 bucks, and since I was in college, it was a very big deal.   I still love it.
 

---- interlude.  continuing later, now playing my New Stuff playlist from my iPod, which is a bit more abbreviated than my primary hard drive playlist  (when, O when will Apple put a larger drive in the venerable Pod?  The agony.... my life is barely worth living).  No Chickenman, for instance.----

8. Green, Another Sunny Day.  A recent recommendation from eMusic; closely related to a particular favorite of mine, the Field Mice and Sarah Records.  Twee brit-pop with an emphasis on strummed guitars and sweet harmonies. If you like the Smiths, you will like this.

9. Crow, Jim Carroll Band.  Originally had recorded this on cassette from my brother's vinyl.  I had forgotten how good it was.  spoken-shouted vocals over ragged, chugging new wave New York guitars, it was Instant LouReed (just add Hudson River water!).  The difference that Jim Carroll sang stories about himself, rather than people he knew. (my favorite review comment about Carroll's most famous song, People Who Died, was something along the line that when he starts repeating the people in the third verse, you wish he knew more people).  Again, able to put  this back into my digital collection cheap through eMusic.

10.  Elephant Lamp, The Balconies.  reference here.  Thanks, D-KW!  Great garage band power-pop featuring paired male-female vocals.

11.  Little Eyes, Yo La Tengo.  One of the things I do most often with my eMusic subscription is catch up on older stuff I missed or neglected.  This is one such.  YLT; how do they work?  Sometimes skronky, sometimes hypnotic, sometimes poppy sometimes all three in the same song.  Saw them once in a basement bar, where the opening band busted their snare, and Georgia came out to lend hers; also saw them doing a Storytellers style peformance at the space on top of Discovery World (they played in the room at the top of the round part of the building), with the Lake and The City as 300 degree backdrops. Who the hell booked that show?  Sublime.

12.  The Bottle And The Bell, Dramarama.  Another Jersey band, reformed for this album.  I've always wondered why this band never made it huge.  Big, loopy hooks, great vocalist and songwriter... anyway, they took the VH-1 "whatever happened to" show and actually got the band back together.

I saw them play a nearly empty Shank Hall back in the day, and they didn't care, but still wanted to come out and party with each and every one of us, or at least look for a floor to crash on.  Unfortunately, I had a real job back then.  Nowadays, fuck the hangover.

13.  Nothing Remains, Male Bonding.  OK, I know this is something somebody linked to from the bloggerhood, but fuck me if I can remember who.  Probably B^4.  Whoever, stand up and take a bow.  Happy lil punky power pop song,  clocking in under 2 minutes cuz really, who needs more?  Plus, great "ooo-eeooo, oooee-ooo" harmonies on the chorus.

14.  96 to 4, the 22-20s.   Opened for the Hold Steady at Summerfest, and I was much impressed.  More power poppy British band, but with an underlying toughness due to their road work on the British blues circuit.

15.  I Hate You, Orpheus.  Another walk-by at Summerfest (yes, after S-fest, I have a little pile of new CDs I've picked up at the merch tables.  Not only do you get to talk to the band or their girlfriends, the ten bucks goes directly to them for gas and drugs. This year, I think I had about 20 CDs.  What the fuck is wrong with me?)  a ska band from the De Pere, they all were barely old enough to shave.  Hadn't been born when Madness and Two Tone were all over my turntable.  I love the kids today.


Going back to the Gaslight Anthem, perhaps they have the answer to my question, in the song I mentioned,  I'da called you Woody, Joe:

And then I heard it like a shot through my skull to my brain,
I felt my fingertips tingle and it started to rain,
When the walls of my bedroom were tremblin' around me,
This ramshackle voice over attack of a bluesbeat,
Tellin' me he's only looking for fun.
This was the sound of the very last gang in town.


As heard by my wild young heart, like directions on a cold dark night,
Sayin', 'Let it out... You're doin' all right.'
And I heard it in his chain gang soul.
It wasn't just the same sad song.
Saying, 'Let it out, you're doing all right.'
And I'm doing all right, are you doin' all right?


And I carried these songs like a comfort wherever I'd go.
They was there when my summers was high, there when she left me alone.
Saying... 'The soul is hard to find.'


And I never got to tell him so I just wrote it down,
I wrapped a couple chords around it and I let it come out,
When the walls of my bedroom trembled around me,
To this ramshackle voice over attack of a bluesbeat,
And a girl, on the excitement gang.
That was the sound of the very last gang in town.

Here, I am going to shamelessly steal Brian Fallon's words:  When the last gang in town are shouting ramshackle voices over ragged beats,  it recalls the days of my wild young heart, and these songs I carry are still a comfort wherever I go.