The Sunday Re-Run

One of my earliest pieces... I had been blogging for about two and a half months when I wrote this... and got zero comments.  The impetus for this re-run is a discussion Occasional Reader VX and I had some time ago about college radio... which was my principal on-line listening source before Radio Paradise and Pandora came along.  The piece:

Just Ramblin' On...

So. Just had to get the Stein thing out of the way earlier. In one respect, it’s not a pleasant thing to begin your day by reading some such twit. On the other hand, it does get the blood and bile flowing, especially when you see that many, many others share your view.

Now it’s on to mundane, hum-drum, everyday life as I know it.

Today’s soundtrack is being provided by KXLU, the Loyola Marymount college radio station in West LA. I’ve written before that one of the best things about going back to a desktop as my primary computer is I can listen to internet radio again. The laptop’s tinny speakers just didn’t cut it. The desktop’s audio is adequate in terms of volume and fidelity, even if it doesn’t come close to my stereo. And adequate is sufficient as background, as opposed to serious listening.

I love internet radio, especially the college variety. College radio exposes me to stuff I’d never hear on commercial radio, some is lame, most is good. Commercial radio is entirely lame. If you disagree, give me an example. I’m willing to change my mind. In the mean time, here’s a good resource for college radio, 77 stations from which to choose, to be precise.

I was first exposed to college radio back in 1967. I’d come home after a swing shift up on the radar site and wasn’t quite ready to go to bed. So I flipped on the stereo, grabbed a beer and began twiddling the dial, winding up on KCSB 91.9FM, Santa Barbara (Isla Vista, actually). And my life was changed forever. No hyperbole here, I really mean it. I stayed awake the entire night listening to the most amazing music I’d ever heard, groups like Jefferson Airplane, Cream, Moby Grape, Buffalo Springfield. While it sounds strange today, those groups got next to zero airplay on commercial radio at the time. The sun came up, the First Mrs. Pennington walked out of the bedroom, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, and said “You’ve been up all night?” Indeed I had. We had breakfast and within an hour we were on the road from Lompoc to Isla Vista. I dropped an obscene amount of money (for a poor USAF three-striper) in the campus record shops that day on music I’d heard the night before. Hearing KCSB was an epiphany quite unlike any other, before or since. My politics changed, my circle of friends changed, my outlook on life changed. If that ain’t epiphany, I don’t know what is.

Two more college radio anecdotes. First: If you didn’t click on the KCSB link above you don’t know that Sean Hannity was fired from his student DJ gig on KCSB for making a “disparaging remark” about homosexuals. The great irony is the ACLU came to his defense and KCSB offered him his slot back. Hannity refused, demanding more air time. The A-C-frickin’-L-U, one of Hannity’s biggest targets these days. The ingrate. Second: The great thing about college radio? Earlier this morning, the 20-something female KXLU DJ played Joni Mitchell’s “Song for Sharon,” off of Hejira, quite possibly my favorite Joni album. Why is this unusual? Joni turned 62 back in November. I find it amazing a 20-something would even listen to someone old enough to be her grandmother, let alone play her on the radio. But that’s college radio. And by the way, the First Mrs. Pennington and Ms. Mitchell share birthdays: November 7th. I had a thing for older women back in the day. They could buy me beer.

Last year around this time I wrote a 14-page illustrated story titled “When I Was Eight” for my youngest son and my grandson on the occasion of their eighth birthdays. Sean, my grandson, is five months older than my youngest son. I’m thinking of serializing that story for the blog, but I haven’t made up my mind one way or the other. The most interesting thing about my eighth year? I attended the third grade in three different countries: Atlanta, Georgia; London, England; and Paris, France. I also was victimized by a cross-country road trip from Sacramento, CA to Atlanta, GA, including an unprogrammed three-day layover in Salome, Arizona when the family car broke down. This was in 1953, well before Interstate highways criss-crossed the country. A road trip back then was a serious adventure; it was a lot more serious for a young Mom, alone, with an eight-year-old and a two-year-old in the back seat. I had an “interesting” childhood. In a lot more ways than one, lemmee tell ya!

Well. Enough for now.

A short editorial note: I did post the "When I was Eight" story, in three parts.  There are links to the posts in my sidebar under "My Favorite Posts."  Further... You'll note there were neither photos nor video with the post above.  We since changed our style and illustrate everythang we put up, which is a lesson I remember from my tech-writing days: always illustrate your narrative.  Always.  

Video works pretty well, too.  Here's Joni singin' "Song For Sharon," the tune we went on about in our ramblings above.

Good stuff, innit?

Just Ramblin' On...

So. Just had to get the Stein thing out of the way earlier. In one respect, it’s not a pleasant thing to begin your day by reading some such twit. On the other hand, it does get the blood and bile flowing, especially when you see that many, many others share your view.

Now it’s on to mundane, hum-drum, everyday life as I know it.

Today’s soundtrack is being provided by KXLU, the Loyola Marymount college radio station in West LA. I’ve written before that one of the best things about going back to a desktop as my primary computer is I can listen to internet radio again. The laptop’s tinny speakers just didn’t cut it. The desktop’s audio is adequate in terms of volume and fidelity, even if it doesn’t come close to my stereo. And adequate is sufficient as background, as opposed to serious listening.

I love internet radio, especially the college variety. College radio exposes me to stuff I’d never hear on commercial radio, some is lame, most is good. Commercial radio is entirely lame. If you disagree, give me an example. I’m willing to change my mind. In the mean time, here’s a good resource for college radio, 77 stations from which to choose, to be precise.

I was first exposed to college radio back in 1967. I’d come home after a swing shift up on the radar site and wasn’t quite ready to go to bed. So I flipped on the stereo, grabbed a beer and began twiddling the dial, winding up on KCSB 91.9FM, Santa Barbara (Isla Vista, actually). And my life was changed forever. No hyperbole here, I really mean it. I stayed awake the entire night listening to the most amazing music I’d ever heard, groups like Jefferson Airplane, Cream, Moby Grape, Buffalo Springfield. While it sounds strange today, those groups got next to zero airplay on commercial radio at the time. The sun came up, the First Mrs. Pennington walked out of the bedroom, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, and said “You’ve been up all night?” Indeed I had. We had breakfast and within an hour we were on the road from Lompoc to Isla Vista. I dropped an obscene amount of money (for a poor USAF three-striper) in the campus record shops that day on music I’d heard the night before. Hearing KCSB was an epiphany quite unlike any other, before or since. My politics changed, my circle of friends changed, my outlook on life changed. If that ain’t epiphany, I don’t know what is.

Two more college radio anecdotes. First: If you didn’t click on the KCSB link above you don’t know that Sean Hannity was fired from his student DJ gig on KCSB for making a “disparaging remark” about homosexuals. The great irony is the ACLU came to his defense and KCSB offered him his slot back. Hannity refused, demanding more air time. The A-C-frickin’-L-U, one of Hannity’s biggest targets these days. The ingrate. Second: The great thing about college radio? Earlier this morning, the 20-something female KXLU DJ played Joni Mitchell’s “Song for Sharon,” off of Hejira, quite possibly my favorite Joni album. Why is this unusual? Joni turned 62 back in November. I find it amazing a 20-something would even listen to someone old enough to be her grandmother, let alone play her on the radio. But that’s college radio. And by the way, the First Mrs. Pennington and Ms. Mitchell share birthdays: November 7th. I had a thing for older women back in the day. They could buy me beer.

Last year around this time I wrote a 14-page illustrated story titled “When I Was Eight” for my youngest son and my grandson on the occasion of their eighth birthdays. Sean, my grandson, is five months older than my youngest son. I’m thinking of serializing that story for the blog, but I haven’t made up my mind one way or the other. The most interesting thing about my eighth year? I attended the third grade in three different countries: Atlanta, Georgia; London, England; and Paris, France. I also was victimized by a cross-country road trip from Sacramento, CA to Atlanta, GA, including an unprogrammed three-day layover in Salome, Arizona when the family car broke down. This was in 1953, well before Interstate highways criss-crossed the country. A road trip back then was a serious adventure; it was a lot more serious for a young Mom, alone, with an eight-year-old and a two-year-old in the back seat. I had an “interesting” childhood. In a lot more ways than one, lemmee tell ya!

Well. Enough for now.

Radio Paradise

In an e-mail note, my Great Good Friend Lori in SFO (we go back to 1977) writes:

“I still haven't had a chance to read the Bushisms, etc., that you sent, but I wanted to thank you for the Radio Paradise link. This shit is GREAT!”

She’s right, ya know. I haven’t raved about much of late, but Radio Paradise is worth raving about. In previous posts I’ve written about my love for college radio and my admiration for American free-form FM radio of the 1970s. I’ve also railed against the current state of FM radio: it’s not even worth what you pay for it, i.e., nothing. Commercial FM radio these days is worse than worthless. There’s limited choice and NO variety in the music played, the play lists reinforce mediocrity, and discourage musical exploration on the part of the audience. Today's commercial FM radio limits it's audience while stifling new talent. I’ll cut to the chase: commercial FM radio sucks. Period.

There are alternatives to commercial FM, as I’ve mentioned. Among those alternatives, Radio Paradise has, for me, become the “station of choice.” RP is just SO damned good I’ve not ventured anywhere else in the past week or ten days. In case you haven’t followed the links I’ve posted, I’ll quote a little from RP’s FAQ page:

Each hour of music is carefully blended together to flow smoothly between different musical styles & genres - just like real DJs used to do on FM. We don't use the computer-generated playlists or "carefully researched music libraries" that have sucked the soul out of FM radio - and we never just throw songs together at random the way many web stations do.
We also depend on input from you to help fine-tune our music mix. If you hear something that you feel strongly about (either positively or negatively), please take a moment to post a comment on that song. Just click the song title on the playlist or in the mini-browser window. We'd also love to hear from you if there's an artist you don't hear, but think would fit in with our music mix. Registered users can upload suggested additions to the library for review.
Radio Paradise is located in Paradise, California (hence the name...). Paradise is a peaceful little town in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains, far from the big city stress & turmoil. Hopefully we'll help to bring a little Paradise into your life, wherever you're located. Click here for our Paradise weather station.
The station is run using an innovative programming automation system designed by Radio Paradise's Bill Goldsmith. The actual music servers are located in San Jose, New York, and Portland, Ore and can be remotely controlled from our Paradise studio or from anywhere else in the world via a laptop. Look for some exciting "travels with RP" in the future.
Our audio servers are located in Vienna, Virginia (64kb & 128kb) and San Jose, California (32kb & 16kb). They all feature high-speed redundant Internet connections to keep the music flowing smoothly.

It’s amazing what three people (the entire staff: RP is a true “Mom and Pop” operation) can do in this day and age. I’m certainly glad Bill and Rebecca have come to radio’s rescue. One more thing to add: RP is commercial-free; they’re ALL about the music. You will get an occasional request for support, RP is completely listener-supported. (My check will be in the mail today.) Give ‘em a listen. There’s no better soundtrack available while you’re on the ‘puter. Hell, there’s no better soundtrack available, period!

What Time Is It? It's Meme Time!

Yeah… we haven't done the meme thing in quite a while, but a meme about music kinda hits me where I live. About which, this:

Now these albums are emphatically not the 15 greatest albums of all time. While that's also an interesting question, that's not what I had in mind. These are more like the 15 albums I'd have to take to a desert island with me... the ones I don't think I could go without. Maybe, my 15 favorites of all my favorites.

That would be Blog-Bud Jim's swell pal Donatello speaking… and this post kicked off the madness.  And that's the meme: list your 15 all-time favorite albums.  Pretty simple, eh?  Jim is supposed to post his own "15 favorites" sometime today, but we're just slightly ahead of our time here… given as how this post will go up sometime around midnite. I'll update with an appropriate link later.

I had to go back and re-read the post in question before I embarked on my own. I was seriously mistaken, seeing as how I thought this was all about "15 albums that changed my world." It ain't… at least in its original incarnation. Still and even… "music that changed my world" seems like an appropriate variation on a theme, and that's the way I'm gonna go. Let's get started.

 

The year: 1957. The place: Ankara, Turkey. The Ol' Man was stationed in Ankara at the time and to say the USAF BX/PX distribution network ain't what it is today is a MASSIVE understatement. Elvis' debut album came out in 1956, I got it placed in my hot lil grubby hands for Christmas in 1957… as part of a gift package from my grandmother, God bless and rest her soul. How in the HELL she figured out a 12 year old kid would like… no, LOVE… something as radical as Elvis' first album is so far beyond me as to be almost alien. But she did, and as I said: God bless her for that. Keep in mind: popular music in 1957 was pretty much all Perry Como, Frank Sinatra, Patti Page, Rosemary Clooney and the like. Elvis wailing "Hound Dog" was as different from that mainstream as hip-hop is to "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik."

Honorable mentions go to the Fats Domino and Chuck Berry singles that were also in that Christmas box… they were all part of a package that seriously changed my musical tastes. But it was Elvis who rocked my world.  And changed it forever.
 

Fast forward to 1960. I was now 15 and living in Washington, D.C. I'll choose the James Brown single on the left as an example of the revelation that came upon me beginning sometime around 1959 and culminated in 1960. That revelation was Black Radio and the R&B music featured there… which was unlike anything I had ever heard before (sorta: see Fats Domino, above). I'd go into my room at night and listen to my crackly, staticky AM radio, marveling at the music I heard… music that was Unobtanium in my white-bread, lily-white suburban world. Once again, consider the times… you simply did NOT find James Brown, Lloyd Price, or Ray Charles in the "hits" bin at Woolworths back in the day… that day being 1958 - 1960… at least not in suburbia. I would have had to journey into Southeast Washington to get that music in my hands back then and since I was only 15 and without a driver's license, that was out of the question. My parents simply wouldn't go there… literally… but the music was on the radio, the radio was in my room, and it was ON every single night. It was an education like no other.

1964. Biloxi, Mississippi (Keesler AFB). Three viewings of "A Hard Day's Night"… the movie… followed up by the IMMEDIATE purchase of the album and every single Beatles album released ever after. Beatlemania struck us HARD and opened us up to The British Invasion. Gerry and the Pacemakers, the Hollies, the Kinks, and The Rolling Stones weren't far behind. But the Beach Boys and early '60s American pop were left behind… FAR behind. My world changed… again.

1967. Lompoc, California (Vandenberg AFB). I was stationed at Lompoc Air Force Station and did shift work for about three years straight. One night in 1967 I came home from a swing shift sometime around 0030 hours and didn't want to go to bed immediately. So I got myself a beer, parked my tired young ass in the living room, switched on the FM radio, and began surfing up and down the dial… when I came across this… playing on KCSB… the college radio station out of UCSB in Isla Vista:

Yowzers! Moby Grape!  My eyes opened wide… my ears perked up and I was frickin' mesmerized. About 10 seconds into the cut I turned it up… WAY up… prompting an irritated visit from The First Mrs. Pennington, who had long been asleep. I apologized and went to headphones. And stayed up all night… listening to bands like It's a Beautiful Day, Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead, and so on. I went on break a couple of days later, whereupon I drove down to Isla Vista and dropped an obscene amount of money (for a young three-striper) in a local indie record store. A (plastic) hippie was born…

So. We remained deeply immersed in "alternative rock" for the next ten years or so. We went from Moby Grape to Buffalo Springfield (and its individual members, like Stephen Stills and Neil Young), Santana, The Byrds, and so on and so forth. We bought the Woodstock album. We were seriously into Dylan and Joan Baez. The whole nine yards… the music led us to the counterculture, such as it was, and thus was a serious life altering event. And we stayed there for quite a while. Until 1978 or so… but before we go there… there's this:

1975. Tokyo, Japan… Yokota Air Base, actually. Neil Young's "Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere." I've told this story before, so there's no real need to repeat myself. EKTIN changed my life for-frickin'-EVER and was the soundtrack for the best years of my life. I just can NOT leave this album out. No way. No how. It was definitely THAT big to me.

1978 - 1980. North Bend, Oregon. College radio, yet again… and this time it was a break from what had become "classic rock," in the form of Elvis Costello, The Pretenders, and Nick Lowe… just to name three. You could also toss in the first Dire Straits album, coz it was released during that time, as well. Our musical tastes were evolving, ever so subtly. And then in what might be the most amazing case of serendipity I've ever experienced… I received orders in 1980 assigning me to RAF Uxbridge in London. The Second Mrs. Pennington and I were set down in what was arguably the very heart of the alternative music scene at the time. And we took advantage… going out to pubs, clubs, concerts and the like every damned weekend. It was… ahem… Nirvana.

So. Just one more and then we'll go. The year is 1988. Dee-troit. My Good Buddy Greg dropped by late one evening, as was his habit, and left Lyle Lovett's "Pontiac" with TSMP and I. This is the last "life changing" album I can think of and it was life changing in the sense it opened my eyes to "New Country." I've been a life-long fan of Lyle's… and country music in the larger sense… ever since.

This is only half of the meme's requisite "15 albums," and Lord knows I could add more… many more. A couple more Beatles albums. At least one John Hiatt album. Motown. The Who. Pink Floyd. Leo Kottke. Soul Asylum.  Six Dylan albums, and at least that many from the Stones. More than a few from Joni Mitchell. Etta James.  And we haven't even scratched the classical music genre, there being more than a few Mozart and Vivaldi albums I couldn't live without. The Blues, too. Da Blooze would merit a post all its own, when you come right down to it. But this is the state of my musical memories at the moment… so it's gonna have to do.

Update:  Jim's 15.  That ol' cliché about looking up "eclectic" and finding Jim's picture as the only entry in the dictionary applies.  Hoo-Boy, does it EVAH!

A Minor Change in Plans

Number One Son called yesterday about five minutes before I was out the door and on my way to Clovis. I had completely forgotten (a) Saturdays feature “The NHL on NBC,” and (b) The Wings were playing the Avs. Change in plans. I can wash the frickin’ car any ole day of the week (except for Sundays: Blue Laws in a Red State). Wings vs. Avs don’t happen just any ole time, however. So, it’s hockey.

Great game. It’s always good when the Wings win, and so they did, 3 – 0. The Wings have won all three games against the Avs this year, two of them in Denver. The first two periods were scoreless, and then the Wings turned it ON in the third period. Manny Legace was superb in goal, and all three Wings goals were highlight-reel quality. An entertaining game.

I made a fateful decision just before settling in to watch the game yesterday. The sun was well over the yardarm, so I decided to have a couple of Fat Tires while watching the game. Make that three. After the game was over and Number One Son and I had replayed the best bits, something very akin to a Persistent Vegetative State overcame me. I laid myself down for a “short nap” and woke up several hours later, hungry as all Hell but not motivated enough to cook. A quick trip out to a fast-food emporium solved both of the immediate problems. Left unsolved was my complete and utter lack of motivation to do anything productive. I spent the remainder of yesterday’s waking moments (and they were brief) on the couch before falling back asleep.

That’ll teach me to drink beer in the middle of the day.

Yesterday’s song of the day had a few great contenders. The nominees were: The Ramones’ “I Wanna Be Sedated,” Warren Zevon’s “Werewolves of London,” and Mick Jagger’s “Memo From Turner.”

May I have the envelope, please?

And the winner is… Memo From Turner!

Song: Memo From Turner

Artist: Mick Jagger

Album: Performance (Soundtrack from the film of the same name)

Year: 1970

Source: Radio Paradise. Check out their playlist.

Makes Me Think of & etc.: I first heard this song in 1970, on either KLOS or KMET out of Los Angeles. I’d just returned to the US from a two-year exile at Wakkanai AS in northern Japan and was stationed at Boron AFS, CA. Part of the “burn-in” process of returning home was a re-immersion in the US radio scene. And I did immerse myself! I spent nearly every waking hour when I wasn’t working listening to that wonderful LA FM radio, jotting down notes and subsequently buying music that I heard and liked. (mini-rant) 1970 was arguably the apogee of the “free-form” commercial rock radio format, characterized by real, live DJs playing music they liked, as opposed to what we get today: music from a highly researched, focus-group-validated and extremely limited play list, tailored to fit the target demographics of a radio station. As previously noted, college radio and to some extent, internet radio, are exceptions. (/mini-rant)

Back to “Memo.” I don’t own the album this song is taken from, but I wish I did. I firmly believe Jagger's at his best when he sings the blues, and the Stones have cut some great blues originals and covers. Plus, there’s some FINE slide guitar playing on the Performance album, mostly from Ry Cooder, but rumor has it the late Lowell George (of Little Feat fame) and Mick Taylor also played on this album. I’m a fan of both Little Feat (the original band, not the resurrected incarnation) and Ry Cooder. There’s disagreement as to who actually played the slide guitar on “Memo,” but my money’s on Ry Cooder. Cooder's style is distinctive, there's not many who can match his slide playing. Here’s more commentary on the “Performance” soundtrack; here’s a track list for “Performance,” plus more commentary on the album in the comments section. (Memo to self: BUY this album!)

Lyrics:

Didn't I see you down in San Antone on a hot and dusty night?
We were eating eggs in Sammy's when the black man there drew his knife.
Aw, you drowned that Jew in Rampton as he washed his sleeveless shirt,
You know, that Spanish-speaking gentlemen, the one we all called "Kurt."

Come now, gentleman, I know there's some mistake.
How forgetful I'm becoming, now you fixed your bus'ness straight.

I remember you in Hemlock Road in nineteen fifty-six.
You're a faggy little leather boy with a smaller piece of stick.
You're a lashing, smashing hunk of man;
Your sweat shines sweet and strong.
Your organs working perfectly, but there's a part that's not screwed on.

Weren't you at the Coke convention back in nineteen sixty-five
You're the misbred, grey executive I've seen heavily advertised.
You're the great, gray man whose daughter licks policemen's buttons clean.
You're the man who squats behind the man who works the soft machine.

Come now, gentleman, your love is all I crave.
You'll still be in the circus when I'm laughing, laughing on my grave.

When the old men do the fighting and the young men all look on.
And the young girls eat their mothers meat from tubes of plasticon.
Be wary of these my gentle friends of all the skins you breed.
They have a tasty habit - they eat the hands that bleed.

So remember who you say you are and keep your noses clean.
Boys will be boys and play with toys so be strong with your beast.
Oh Rosie dear, doncha think it's queer, so stop me if you please.
The baby is dead, my lady said, "You gentlemen, why you all work for me!"

I'm wondering what happened to my latest "Images of New Mexico" post. It's gone missing, and that is REALLY strange. First time I've had that happen to me. I'll repost in a bit.

So, it’s more of the same today. More Radio Paradise…I can’t get enough of these guys! A lil more ‘net surfing and some disconnected thoughts that may result in an essay later on today. Or not. A typical Sunday in P-Town.

Today's Happy Hour Soundtrack, In Which We Re-Visit An Old Friend

It's no secret that we loves us some Pandora, and it's an open secret Pandora provides us with the better part of our daily soundtrack, when the WX is such that we cannot listen to our own music.  But Pandora has grown stale these last few days, if not weeks, given the rather predictable nature o' the songs we hear... even given the various and numerous different stations we've defined on the service.  I have no ideer how Pandora chooses its music but I have a sneakin' suspicion the playlist is chosen... in part... by the number of "likes" the listener gives the various tunes.  So, Pandora has become eminently predictable for better or worse, and in my case it's MOST definitely worse: I've become bored with Pandora.

So it was today that we re-visited Radio Paradise (RP) and  downloaded their spiffy app onto the mePhone.  I was gratified to learn RP is alive and well and we've spent most of the day... including today's Happy Hour... listenin' to RP.  The thing I love about RP?  It's oh-so-eclectic.  Example (see here for the current playlist):

RP does radio like radio ought be done, which is to say like late-'70s free form radio.  There are other options on these inter-tubes if you like that sorta eclecticism, and college radio comes to mind.  But RP does it for me....

So, today's tune...



That's from "So," an album The Second Mrs. Pennington took with her when we split the blanket.  I've never replaced that album for some unknown reason... well, THAT'S not true, the truth bein' that the album and the songs therein cause an immeasurable amount o' pain.  But, Hey!  It's good to hear some of these songs every now and again.

It's good to hear RP again, too.  I'm thinkin' we won't be back to Pandora for quite a while.

Protest Songs

In case you were wondering, protest songs are alive and sorta well. People of my generation cut their teeth on protest music; we sang along with CCR's "Fortunate Son," Edwin Starr's "War," CSNY's "Ohio," and lots of stuff from Dylan (e.g., Blowin' in the Wind, Subterranean Homesick Blues, The Times They Are a Changin'). Even if you didn't sing along, you couldn't avoid the genre...it was all over the radio. That's not the case today, unless the hip-hop guys are doing it. I'll freely admit I'm oblivious to what the rappers are doing, for all I know there are 39 anti-war raps out there. I just don't go there.

So while I'm not aware of any mainstream, commercial radio protest songs these days, I am very much aware the genre survives in niche markets served by college radio and Pacifica outlets. I listen to KPFT, Pacifica's Houston's station...in fact, I'm listening to Spare Change, a weekly show hosted by a DJ named Larry Winters. Winters specializes in protest songs. Here's a few songs I've heard him play this morning:

Steve Earle's "Home to Houston" (2004)

Great God A’mighty what was wrong with me
I know the money’s good but buddy can’t you see
You can’t take it with you and that ain’t no lie
I don’t wanna let ‘em get me I’m too young to die
If I ever get home to Houston alive
Then I won’t drive a truck anymore

Iris Dement's "Wasteland of the Free"

We kill for oil, then we throw a party when we win
Some guy refuses to fight, and we call that the sin
but he's standing up for what he believes in
and that seems pretty damned American to me
and it feels like I am living in the wasteland of the free

(Chorus)

While we sit gloating in our greatness
justice is sinking to the bottom of the sea
Living in the wasteland of the free
Living in the wasteland of the free
Living in the wasteland of the free

John Fogerty's "Deja Vu All Over Again" (2003)

Day by day I hear the voices rising
Started with a whisper like it did before
Day by day we count the dead and dying
Ship the bodies home while the networks all keep score

Did you hear 'em talkin' 'bout it on the radio
Could your eyes believe the writing on the wall
Did that voice inside you say
I've heard it all before
It's like Deja Vu all over again

KPFT publishes their playlists, but they're a week in arrears. You can see Larry's entire oeuvre here. A casual scan of the playlist(s) reveals Larry's an equal-opportunity protester. Granted, most of his songs are decidedly anti-right-wing, anti-war, but there's a lot of social-ills protest, too. Like Brando replied when asked "Johnny, what are you rebelling against?" Larry will say "Whattaya got?" This is good. You don't want to be a one-note anything in life, let alone a one-note protester!

I searched for Winters' bio but came up empty. At the risk of stereotyping, I suspect Larry's an old hippie. God knows they're coming out of the freaking woodwork these days. And it's mostly the old hippies that are manning the anti-war barricades, too. And they need some new anthems; the old Viet-Nam stuff is nice, but it's not very topical, is it?

({1303 MST} Oh My God...Winters just trotted out "Imagine." Excuse me, I'm gonna be sick.)

I'm back. God, I can't stand cliches!

Where was I? Anthems, yes. There are none, yet. I believe the lack of a general air-play, genuinely popular anti-war song is a good sign for those of us who support the war. The lack of popular anti-war songs tells me the anti-war movement hasn't gained any traction. Another sign of a lack of traction is the fact songs like "Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue," "American Soldier," and "Have You Forgotten" get lots of airplay, even though those songs are all two years old, or older. And country music artists create new songs every month...and they get airplay. Lots of it.

So. I'll keep listening. Ol' Larry's doing his part, but he seems to be pissing in the wind. Thank God.

(Here's another view on the Protest Song genre, specifically its resurrection.)

Color... In Two Parts

Two views of what passes for Fall color in this part o' the world:

This phenomenon is pretty unusual for The High Plains of New Mexico.  Most years I've awakened around this time o' year, looked out my window and see that ALL the leaves fell overnight with absolutely NO change in color.  I mean the ground is literally carpeted with green leaves, a classic case of "here today, gone tomorrow."  But not this year... the leaves are a beautiful golden yellow and this brings back memories of Former Happy Days when we lived up in the deciduous north.  I miss that... until I remember what always followed: tons of fucking snow.

―:☺:―

So.  We continue to read "Life" and we continue to encounter some real gems, just as I thought knew we would.  Here are a couple o' such...

The most bizarre part of the whole story is that having done what we intended to do in our narrow, purist teenage brains at the time, which was to turn people on to the blues, what actually happened was we turned American people back on to their own music. And that’s probably our greatest contribution to music. We turned white America’s brain and ears around. And I wouldn’t say we were the only ones—without the Beatles probably nobody would have broken the door down. And they certainly weren’t bluesmen.

American black music was going along like an express train. But white cats, after Buddy Holly died and Eddie Cochran died, and Elvis was in the army gone wonky, white American music when I arrived was the Beach Boys and Bobby Vee. They were still stuck in the past. The past was six months ago; it wasn’t a long time. But shit changed. The Beatles were the milestone. And then they got stuck inside their own cage. “The Fab Four.” Hence, eventually, you got the Monkees, all this ersatz shit. But I think there was a vacuum somewhere in white American music at the time.

[...]

Jim Dickinson, the southern boy who played piano on “Wild Horses,” was exposed to black music through the powerful and only black radio station, WDIA, when he was growing up in Memphis, so when he went to college in Texas he had a musical education that exceeded that of anybody he met there. But he never saw any black musicians, even though he lived in Memphis, except once he saw the Memphis Jug Band with Will Shade and Good Kid on the washboard, when they were playing in the street when he was nine. But the racial barriers were so severe that those kinds of players were inaccessible to him. Then Furry Lewis —at whose funeral he played—and Bukka White and others were being brought out to play via the folk revival.

I do think maybe the Stones had a lot to do with making people twiddle their knobs a little more. When we put out “Little Red Rooster,” a raw Willie Dixon blues with slide guitar and all, it was a daring move at the time, November 1964. We were getting no-no’s from the record company, management, everyone else. But we felt we were on the crest of a wave and we could push it. It was almost in defiance of pop. In our arrogance at the time, we wanted to make a statement. “I am the little red rooster / Too lazy to crow for day.” See if you can get that to the top of the charts, motherfucker. Song about a chicken. Mick and I stood up and said, come on, let’s push it. This is what we’re fucking about. And the floodgates burst after that, suddenly Muddy and Howlin’ Wolf and Buddy Guy are getting gigs and working. It was a breakthrough. And the record got to number one. And I’m absolutely sure what we were doing made Berry Gordy at Motown capable of pushing his stuff elsewhere, and it certainly rejuvenated Chicago blues as well.

I'm absolutely certain about the Stones expanding America's musical tastes, as well.  I've written about this before (well, sorta) and at the risk of being somewhat self-serving, let me quote: 

Fast forward to 1960. I was now 15 and living in Washington, D.C. I'll choose the James Brown single on the left as an example of the revelation that came upon me beginning sometime around 1959 and culminated in 1960. That revelation was Black Radio and the R&B music featured there… which was unlike anything I had ever heard before (sorta: see Fats Domino, above). I'd go into my room at night and listen to my crackly, staticky AM radio, marveling at the music I heard… music that was Unobtanium in my white-bread, lily-white suburban world. Once again, consider the times… you simply did NOT find James Brown, Lloyd Price, or Ray Charles in the "hits" bin at Woolworths back in the day… that day being 1958 - 1960… at least not in suburbia. I would have had to journey into Southeast Washington to get that music in my hands back then and since I was only 15 and without a driver's license, that was out of the question. My parents simply wouldn't go there… literally… but the music was on the radio, the radio was in my room, and it was ON every single night. It was an education like no other.

I need to expand on the above.  My father retired from the Air Force in 1960 and moved the fam'bly out to California.  White-bread, suburban California, specifically the San Jose suburbs.  My access to black radio was gone with the wind after that move and it didn't return until sometime in the 1965 - 1966 timeframe when FM radio exploded and Da Blooz became fashionable for middle class white folks. 

But it was the Stones that were largely responsible for that renaissance of American roots music and the foundation for countless numbers of American rock'n'roll bands who followed in the Stones' footsteps.  I can't say I was in the vanguard of Stones fandom; no, I got to the party sometime around 1965 or perhaps early in 1966.   I'm thinking it was right around the time "Aftermath" was released, but memory is a fragile thing and it could have been earlier... much earlier.  The important thing is the fact I got there, innit?  And the more important thing is those old black guys who played Da Blooz suddenly began to appear everywhere... in record bins and on stage, all across America. 

I know I have a few Gentle Readers who have no memory of 1964 - 1966, some because they simply didn't exist at that point in time and others who were far too young to remember that time in any detail, if they remember it at all.  But it was heady indeed for those of us to whom music really matters.  I mean really, rilly matters. 

We, as Americans, owe the Stones a lot.  You can say "thank you" now.  It's not too late.

What? ANOTHER Re-run?

I'm afraid so.  I seem to have hit that point in my blogging career where my old stuff seems much better than anything I can come up with today.  It's either that or my Muse is AWOL again.  Prolly both.

It's stuck, we are.

Stuck

Sometime right around or just before my 50th birthday I made a vow to myself, on the order of "I'll never get stuck in the past… at least where music is concerned." This "getting stuck" phenomenon is something I had noticed quite a long time ago, beginning in my mid-30s or so. My peers and contemporaries seemed to be stuck in the '50s or '60s and most had a tendency to listen to those damned Oldies stations that played lotsa doo-wop, Motown, and Elvis songs at the time… not that there's anything inherently wrong with that music — I love it to death and have a LOT of it — but as a steady diet?  No. Not us.  Not ever. We wanted to keep up, keep current, and keep discovering new stuff.   And for the most part we managed to do just that.

It was sorta easy to keep up when I was that young, given I was living in London during my mid-30s (which had the BEST frickin' music scene in the early '80s, bar none), and continued to live in major metropolitan areas when I returned to the US of A. Even Oklahoma City… where I first landed after living in London… had a great college radio station out of Norman and at least one or two "progressive rock" stations. Moving right along… I was in Dee-troit as I approached my 50th birthday and while you may not think of Detroit as a musical hot bed it did have its share of progressive radio stations and a decent club scene. It was pretty easy to keep current and the music was also pretty danged good at the time… think REM, Soul Asylum, Toad the Wet Sprocket, Cranberries, yadda, yadda… and hip-hop wasn't dominant quite yet, either. Ascendant, yes, but not dominant. We probably added four or five CDs to our music collection each month and went to many more than a few concerts, as well.

So… we remained "unstuck" through the mid-'90s and a lil bit beyond. I remember quite well when my musical life took a turn for the worse: it was in 1999 and the aftermath of  The Great Divorce Crisis. I went off pop music entirely at that time and moved to jazz, country, and classical. I simply couldn't stand to listen to pop (be it current or from the near-past) and nearly all of my music collection: too damned many memories, too much pain. We diversified our tastes and managed to remain "unstuck" as it were, given there was all this great music I was discovering (or rediscovering) for the first time. That went on for about five or six years… or so. And then we slowly but surely began to return to our pop music collection and what was once familiar and comforting.


And here we are today, and the strangest thing has happened: I'm stuck. I noticed I'm mostly listening to Pandora these days, and the stations I've defined are all from my past: Van Morrison. Joni Mitchell. Neil Young. Rolling Stones. Santana. J.J. Cale. Roxy Music. James Brown. Warren Zevon. Dylan. (There are more, but they're all in the same vein.) And most recently: The Beatles, driven by my acquisition of the first two re-mastered albums. I racked my brain and tried to come up with new artists I've bought over the last two years and can only think of a few: Jet, Norah Jones, and Diana Krall (who isn't really new… just new to me). We are well and truly stuck.

So… perhaps getting stuck in the past was inevitable but I had always hoped it wouldn't be so. Dang. I hate it when this happens. 

That's from two and a half years ago.  We're not so much musically stuck these days, but we ARE more into "roots" music.  My last three or four musical purchases have been recordings from old bluesmen, like a five-CD set of old Lightnin' Hopkins recordings and an RL Burnside "early recordings" CD, just to name two (illustrated at right).  I don't consider that bein' stuck... it's more like filling massive holes in the collection and that effort is on-going, as we speak.

Our Pandora experience has changed a lot over the last two and a half years, as well.  Yeah, we still have all those '60s and '70s stations defined, but we've added a few new ones.  So I suppose my old complaint ain't quite what it seems.  We're still pretty well-rounded, if not bleeding edge.

Today's Happy Hour Soundtrack

Warm weather has returned to The High Plains o' New Mexico and that's a great good thing.  "Warm," in this case, means 66 degrees but it feels a whole hella lot warmer than that when you're sitting in full sun, which we're most definitely doin'.  We called Happy Hour a bit earlier than usual, mainly coz we wanted to take advantage o' this lovely day as early as possible.  And so we are.

Our soundtrack today is provided by Pandora's "quick mix" feature, which I dearly love.  (Side note: while it's warm outside it ain't quite warm enough to open up the house and listen to our personal music collection... so we're making do.  Which is much more than just making do, when ya get right down to it.)  For those of you who may be unfamiliar with Quick Mix... Pandora essentially provides you with random selections from all the stations you've defined.  That makes for some interesting segues... like from the Stones to Mozart to Ol' Blue Eyes to John Philip Sousa to Kate Bush to Motown... and so on.  Here's what Pandora is drawing from in my case:

The sheer variety reminds me a lot of free-form FM radio back in the early 1970s, a programming option one doesn't find outside o' college radio these days, and it's pretty rare even there.  The QuickMix is JUST the thing when you're in that "I dunno WHAT the hell I want" kinda mood, not to mention the surprises and quick flashes of joy that happen when one improbable selection follows another.  It's great good stuff, Gentle Reader.

Which brings us to today's selection... Leon Russel singin' Bob Dylan.



This might could be a case of the cover exceeding the original.  Or not, depending on how yer mileage varies.  I like Leon's version a lot better than one of Bob's: 


 
That said, "Love Minus Zero" is a wonderful song and both versions speak to me... highly.

Enough.  Let's get back outside and continue as we've begun.

Stuck

Sometime right around or just before my 50th birthday I made a vow to myself, on the order of "I'll never get stuck in the past… at least where music is concerned." This "getting stuck" phenomenon is something I had noticed quite a long time ago, beginning in my mid-30s or so. My peers and contemporaries seemed to be stuck in the '50s or '60s and most had a tendency to listen to those damned Oldies stations that played lotsa doo-wop, Motown, and Elvis songs at the time… not that there's anything inherently wrong with that music — I love it to death and have a LOT of it — but as a steady diet?  No. Not us.  Not ever. We wanted to keep up, keep current, and keep discovering new stuff.   And for the most part we managed to do just that.

It was sorta easy to keep up when I was that young, given I was living in London during my mid-30s (which had the BEST frickin' music scene in the early '80s, bar none), and continued to live in major metropolitan areas when I returned to the US of A. Even Oklahoma City… where I first landed after living in London… had a great college radio station out of Norman and at least one or two "progressive rock" stations. Moving right along… I was in Dee-troit as I approached my 50th birthday and while you may not think of Detroit as a musical hot bed it did have its share of progressive radio stations and a decent club scene. It was pretty easy to keep current and the music was also pretty danged good at the time… think REM, Soul Asylum, Toad the Wet Sprocket, Cranberries, yadda, yadda… and hip-hop wasn't dominant quite yet, either. Ascendant, yes, but not dominant. We probably added four or five CDs to our music collection each month and went to many more than a few concerts, as well.

So… we remained "unstuck" through the mid-'90s and a lil bit beyond. I remember quite well when my musical life took a turn for the worse: it was in 1999 and the aftermath of  The Great Divorce Crisis. I went off pop music entirely at that time and moved to jazz, country, and classical. I simply couldn't stand to listen to pop (be it current or from the near-past) and nearly all of my music collection: too damned many memories, too much pain. We diversified our tastes and managed to remain "unstuck" as it were, given there was all this great music I was discovering (or rediscovering) for the first time. That went on for about five or six years… or so. And then we slowly but surely began to return to our pop music collection and what was once familiar and comforting.


And here we are today, and the strangest thing has happened: I'm stuck. I noticed I'm mostly listening to Pandora these days, and the stations I've defined are all from my past: Van Morrison. Joni Mitchell. Neil Young. Rolling Stones. Santana. J.J. Cale. Roxy Music. James Brown. Warren Zevon. Dylan. (There are more, but they're all in the same vein.) And most recently: The Beatles, driven by my acquisition of the first two re-mastered albums. I racked my brain and tried to come up with new artists I've bought over the last two years and can only think of a few: Jet, Norah Jones, and Diana Krall (who isn't really new… just new to me). We are well and truly stuck.

So… perhaps getting stuck in the past was inevitable but I had always hoped it wouldn't be so. Dang. I hate it when this happens.

On Music... which quickly turns into another paean to RP

I can usually count on my blogging friends for inspiration, and such is the case with this post. Lou has been reflecting on some of her favorite music over the course of the last day or two and unsurprisingly (or surprisingly, take your pick) I find we have several artists in common: Gary P. Nunn and Joe Ely, just to name two. Lou has a definite advantage over me in this area, as she has lived in places where it wasn’t out of the ordinary to see folks like Gary and/or Joe on a regular basis. Most college towns are like that, come to think on it. And Lou has another musical claim to fame that simply cannot be topped: Neil Young played at her wedding reception! Yowza!!

Music is (and has always been) very, very important to me. Less so these days than in the way-back when I subscribed to The Hippie Trinity of “sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll,” the latter two being prime facilitators of the first, of course. But that tells you more than a little bit about the type of women I hung around with back in the day. Guys, too. The one thing we had one thing in common was a deep devotion to “our” music, and all the trappings…the de rigueur subscription to Rolling Stone (or Creem), the monthly trips here and there to concerts, the patched jeans, the whole nine yards. It was a culcha thang. And part of that culcha was looking down our collective noses at any musical genre that wasn’t “hip”…especially country.

But, ah…the greatest “good thing” about aging is your horizons broaden along with your waist line. Conventional wisdom, such as it is, goes by the boards and you are essentially free of peer pressure to enjoy what you will. I began to develop an appreciation for classical music around age 35 and country music around 40. The aforementioned Joe Ely piqued my interest in country when I saw him in London for the first time in ’81 or ’82 (The Grateful Dead and The Eagles aside. How we made allowances for these two group’s obvious country influences is beyond me, but we did.), Lyle Lovett sharpened it in the mid-80s, and SN1 exposed me to some really great country stuff a few years back. So, I’m a confirmed country fan, now. (SN1, by the way, has the most eclectic taste in music I’ve ever seen, including hip-hop, which I just cannot get into no matter how hard I try.)

Another of the greatest things about pop music is its constant evolution and the constant parade of new artists. “Keeping up” has been a bit of a problem these past few years, or ever since I landed in P-Town. I cancelled my subscription to RS years and years ago, and local radio…uh…sucks, to put it mildly. Long-time readers know I’ve found an answer to this problem: Radio Paradise. I’ve gone on (and on, and on) quite a bit about the wonderfulness of RP. The best thing is the wide variety of music on RP; here’s an example from this hour:

11:22 am - Stephen Stills - Treetop Flyer
11:17 am - Billy Bragg & Wilco - Airline to Heaven
11:12 am - Diana Krall - Fly Me to the Moon
11:06 am - Miles Davis - Blue In Green
11:01 am - Herbie Hancock - Stitched Up (w/ John Mayer)
10:56 am - Cracker - Something You Ain't Got

Two pure-jazz tunes, one jazz-pop fusion tune, one acoustic “Old Hippie” song, and two others. Great stuff. RP also plays a fair bit of country, too…including Johnny and Roseanne Cash, Lyle, Lucinda Williams, Hank Williams (senior), Joe Ely, and Steve Earle, just to name a few that come immediately to mind. And not much, if any, hip-hop. This is a good thing. Another “good thing” is the sense of community RP has. Bill, RP’s proprietor, has facilitated this community by allowing members (membership is free) to comment on each and every song played, and to rate each song on a scale from one to ten. The comments forums (fora?) are a hoot and can be educational to boot, what with song and artist trivia posted routinely. RP members’ song ratings are aggregated in one spot, so you can get a sense of what people like (and don’t like) simply by viewing their profile. As an example, here’s my complete list of “tens:”

10 - The Who - Quadrophenia
10 - Rolling Stones - Wild Horses
10 - Van Morrison - Saint Dominic's Preview
10 - Glenn Miller - A String of Pearls
10 - The Temptations - Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me)
10 - Joni Mitchell - A Case of You
10 - Beatles - You Never Give Me/The End
10 - Kinks - Living On A Thin Line
10 - Blind Faith - Can't Find My Way Home
10 - Neil Young - Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
10 - Pink Floyd - Learning to Fly
10 - Stevie Ray Vaughan - Pipeline
10 - Rolling Stones - Moonlight Mile

Entirely predictable for a guy my age, eh? That Beatles entry is the complete second side of Abbey Road, by the way. If you’re interested, my complete set of ratings is here. A quick perusal of my ratings list gives one a good feel for the eclectic nature of RP’s play list. And insight into my "taste," such as it is.

Radio Paradise: I’d be lost without it. Well, maybe not “lost,” but certainly a lot poorer. The soundtrack to my life these days. Assuming the ‘net connection is in serviceable order, of course.

Validation

I received a nice e-mail the other day from a woman named Deirdre Reilly, who’s a syndicated columnist in Boston. Deirdre went to school at ENMU and still has a warm place in her heart for Portales, which is how she came to e-mail me… she stumbled upon EIP while looking for stuff on the net about P-Ville. And she was kind enough to drop us a note that said very nice things about EIP.

Deirdre recently wrote a column about returning to P-Ville after 20 years (or so) had passed, and here’s an excerpt:

A few months ago I traveled from my home in Boston back to the town where I went to college: Portales, N.M. The college is Eastern New Mexico University, a jewel of southeast New Mexico and home of the Greyhounds sports teams. I was going to be in Phoenix for a few days and had decided to tack on an extra four nights – the plan was to stay two days in Sante Fe, doing the art galleries, and then head out in my rental car for Portales, which is about four hours southeast. I had not been to Portales for 25 years and had sometimes wondered if it even still existed.

[…]

As I drove my rental car (an enormous, silver Chrysler with the world’s coldest sir conditioning) away from Sante Fe, I felt a lightness and anticipation. The miles stretched out into endless ranch scenes and dazzling skies as the weather, which had been snowy, cleared, and the sun shone brightly. I listened to everything on satellite radio – politics, jazz, gospel, you name it. Not passing a car for about 40 miles, I called my 18-year-old and said, “Hey Matt – guess how fast I’m driving?” He laughed, miles away. He felt so close, though, his voice warm on the phone. How fast was I going, he wanted to know, and yelled, “All right!” when I told him 100 mph – and no one to stop me. I hated to let him go when we signed off.

Well, now! I can certainly relate to the 100 mph stuff…driving as fast as you want is one of the Great Good Things about living in the Great Wide-Open. I should probably knock on wood (you, too, Deirdre!), because while there aren’t many cops patrolling our back roads, there are a few. And they DO write tickets. Just ask SN1… But, I digress. There are any number of reasons to fall in love with The High Plains of New Mexico, and I’m glad to know there are other souls in this world that feel as I do about The High Plains and P-Ville. Or, in a single word: validation. Thanks, Dierdre!

Deirdre also has a web site, with links to her columns and other things. Go drop in!