MP3 Of The Week: Her Name Is Nancy....and Frankie Is Her Pa

I've decided on a merger of sorts. Over the last few years I've been thinking about who would end up being my ten favorite bands of the 1990's. It took me five years to figure it out, but I've finally done it. I'm not doing a stupid countdown or anything, either, because it's simply impossible for me rank my ten favorites. Each of them have meant so much to me at different times for me to pick one over the other. Perhaps I have an inkling of who my favorite two or three bands are from that era if someone had a gun to my head, but nobody does. See?

So here's the deal. Over the next ten weeks, my MP3 of the Week feature will showcase a song from my ten favorite bands during the decade when music moved me most. Perhaps during that time it was msuic that even moved me like nothing else has in my life. It changed my career. It changed my tastes. It opened my eyes to all formats and genres. It indirectly, and probably most importantly, made me more accepting of people, no matter what race, religion or sexual preference. It cemented important friendships that remain steadfast and true to this day. It made too many truly unforgettable moments and memories. What a time.

So I hope you are able to download even a few of these songs over the next few installments and experience the soundtrack to my life for a decade.

First up are the Bottle Rockets. I'll probably say something like this every week, but I don't really have enough space here (or writing talent, for that matter) to explain what an incredible live band this is. Just know that there was a time when I was absolutely, positively convinced that a live show couldn't get any better. Until I saw Sloan, that is, but that's another story.

The Bottle Rockets were originally (and probably unfairly) a part of the great alt.country scare of the 1990's. Let it be said here: this band is a rawk band, tried and true. Hailing from the small town of Festus, Missouri, they're certainly bound to throw in a few southern accents here and there, but they're fooling nobody - this was thee most rocking bar band you would have seen back then. There was nobody better.

They were also a little older, fatter and had longer beards. They somehow played great guitar solos while chugging entire pitchers of beer onstage. When someone once yelled, "show us your tits!" at a show in New York, they happily obliged, undoubtedly making that person, and the rest of us, regret that request being made. One particular highlight still makes me smile: one night at The Mercury Lounge in NYC, they came out on stage with a bucket. Inside the bucket were all of the songs they had ever recorded and they proceeded to let the fans simply pick songs out of the hat for the rest of the night. That was their set. Classic. I still have thier original t-shirt, too, which is a complete rip-off of the Harley Davidson logo, and while it's largely relegated to the pile of shirts I only wear under my hockey equipment anymore, at one point it was in very heavy rotation in my daily life.

The Bottle Rockets also serve another specific memory for me - it was at their show in Austin, Texas sometime in the late 1990s where I believe I got as drunk as I ever have in my lifetime. By the end of the show, I was sitting against the back wall of the Waterloo Brewing Company, just smiling at what I was witnessing. Rock bliss.

In looking for a song, I can't say that Nancy Sinatra is my favorite Bottle Rockets song, but I do believe the song speaks to everything this band is all about - well written tributes from middle America. Drunken tributes, maybe, but tributes nonetheless. This song is specifically written from the point of view of a regular dude who just happens to be watching some late night TV and comes across an infomercial selling one of those 1960's retrospectives called "Swinging Sounds of the Sixties," and features some Nancy Sinatra footage. They paint the rest of the picture....

Give it shot, won't you? Let me know your thoughts if you care to.

 

Again - Fire The Coppee Editor!

Oh, Boston Globe, why must you make my life so much easier when it comes to idea generation for my blog? Today's gaffe, probably one of the worst of all time, comes on pages 3 and 5 of the Sports section, where they've run the exact same article twice about Mark Bellhorn possibly signing with the Yankees. The only difference in the two articles is that one of them has a photo. How is it even possible to miss this in the copy editing room?

Yesterday's Globe contained no obvious mistakes as such, but I did manage to get a chuckle out of something. I was paging through the new daily Globe insert called "Sidekick," when I came across a page of reader-submitted celebrity lookalike photos. After realizing that none of them really looked that much like the celebrity, I began wondering to myself who exactly sends these photos in?

As I look closer, only one struck my eye - it seemed that some woman sent in a photo of herself and said she looked like Jennifer Aniston. She didn't. Not even close, really. Who says to themself "whoa! I look like Jennifer Aniston! I'm going to send my picture to the Boston Globe immeadiately!" How vain is that?!?! Uh, come to think of it, how vain is four years of writing a blog about yourself? Yeah, I'll shut up now.

Anyway, all the other photos were submitted by friends or family, thankfully. I should also point out that the entire Sidekick section is really horrific. I know, I know, the economics of the newspaper business call for the dumbing down of the daily scribes, but they didn't need this. It's mildly insulting. Maybe I'll switch to the Times.

Stupid criminal alert! Click that link. I love this story. What's the thought process here? Not only do you have one stupid criminal, you actually have another one who a) didn't notice they were putting the wrong type gas in and then b) both decide that the only logical way to figure it out is with a lighter? Classic.

In other news, let's hope the town sends his parents a plaque of some sort for this.

 

Katrina & The Waves

"Walking On Sunshine" will not be the song that people in New Orleans and the surrounding areas will be singing to themselves over the next couple of days. In case you've kept your head in a vacuum over the last couple of days, Hurricane Katrina is poised to kick some serious ass in New Orleans on Monday. That the city sits below sea level is one concern, but from wherever you're sitting right now, even if it's in Alaska, Katrina's coming for you, too.

Situated in The Gulf of Mexico between Louisiana and Florida are the refineries that produce 30% of American oil. That is exactly where Katrina is right now and it's not expected to be pretty. The best case scenario has the refineries back up and running within a week. That's if there's minimal damage. Last I checked, though, Katrina was spitting out 165 MPH winds and was a category 5 hurricane - as serious as it gets.

What next? Starting like, now, watch as your local gas station knee-jerks and kicks prices up to levels you're not going to like. At all. It'll partially be greedy profit-taking and the increase will be temporary, yes. But it will also speak volumes to the teetering old tree that is oil supply and how just one small event can turn an industry and your wallet on its ears. Now just imagine terrorism (or something else) shuts down Saudi Arabia's production. My goodness. The results would be catastrophic.

All that said, I do manage to find serious amusement in the fact that quite a few are remaining in New Orleans and washing it all down with some time on Bourbon St. I mean, you have to hand it to these folks, if they handed out medals for partying, these dumb-asses get the Distinguished Service Cross.

ITunetastic:
Teenage Fanclub - "Don't Hide"
The International Submarine Band - "A Satisfied Mind"
Bruce Springsteen - "Prove It All Night"
Mission Orange - "Up On Blocks"
Sparklehorse - "Tears On Fresh Fruit"
Georgia Satellites - "Cool Inside"
Simon & Garfunkel - "Scarborough Fair"
Fairport Convention - "Million Dollar Bash"
Bottle Rockets - "Nancy Sinatra"
Elliot Smith - "Tomorrow Tomorrow'
Television - "Prove It"
Guided By Voices - "The Enemy"
Green On Red - "Hair Of The Dog"

 

When It Rains, It Typhoons

Hey, remember just two weeks ago when I was lamenting my Toyota Camry's trip for just $200 worth of scheduled maintenance, only to be socked in the gut with an $1800 bill for brakes (among other things)? And how, just two days prior to that scheduled maintenance, I had just gotten the car back from the body shop after a ladder had fallen on it, courtesy of the guys who painted my house? Remember that time? I do. So I've had the car back now for a week. Neat!

Neat, that is, until Sunday afternoon while returning from a nice weekend spent at a bed & breakfast in Marblehead. We're driving home through Salem, MA and how this particular woman missed seeing us (and the line of 5 or so cars behind us) as she backed out of her driveway is truly beyond me. Sure enough: wham-o. This time it's the passenger side in the rear quarter, which I believe is now the only original piece left on the car. This makes three minor accidents in the space of one year, none of which were my fault. Granted, the damage in all three of these mishaps has been quite minor. This latest one, however, could have been much, much worse, so I'm grateful. The woman who hit my car, well, that's a story I probably need to tell in person, so ask me next time you see me. I wonder what goofy rental car I'll get next?

I'm experimenting with some new content offerings here on the site. I thought it might be interesting to offer an MP3 of the week. I have a vast library of roughly 4,000 songs on my computer now and occasionally I'd like to share a song or two to give readers a sampling of my tastes and expose artists whom I think people would really like. I'm not entirely sure how much server space my hosting company gives me (who pays attention to stuff like that?), so I guess this will last until they say I have no more room.

This week's MP3 of the week is Everybody Dies by Dramarama, one of my favorite bands from the '90s. "Everybody Dies" is a newer track from 2004 and it's a comeback song of sorts for Dramarama, whose fires were rekindled after ten or so years by, of all things, a VH1 reunion special last year. Back in the early part of that decade when I was voraciously gulping up as much new music as I could in college, Dramarama became one of my favorites, a nice blend of modern rock with a hat tip to classics like the Stones, etc. At the time, John Easdale (whom I interviewed here last year), is still one of my favorite well-kept secrets. A great songwriter. As an added bonus, "Everybody Dies" has cowbell. We all know this world could use far more cowbell.

Easdale's comments on the idea behind "Everybody Dies:" "My best friend was diagnosed with esophogeal cancer, and I came up with the song as a sort of "Don't worry, be happy" kind of message for him before we knew how bad it was...he has since departed...and then my mom got sick and died right after that, so what was originally written to help somebody else has helped me deal with things as well...it seems as if death is the ultimate taboo, even more than sexuality and substance abuse (at least here in the US)."

If you download (come on, go ahead, give it a shot), please let me know if you were able to successfully grab the song, as I'm not entirely sure I've done this right. You can also get the song from my newly created MP3 page, which only contains one song, but will eventually be the central repository as I add to the MP3 of the week archives. Enjoy. Would love to hear what you think of the song.

 

Fyre The Copy Editor!

Every so often in my daily morning sojurn through the Boston Globe, I'll come across an incredible oversight on the part of the copy editing team at the Globe. I often wonder how people can miss such glaring mistakes, but hey, nobody's perfect, right? I mean, I often find my own grammatical errors long after I've posted something. Anyway, the fact that nobody is perfect often leads to a good laugh. This headline above, which ran in yesterday's paper, is one of my recent favorites. The headline would indicate that "a woman known for courage and daring action" was seized by police, along with some cocaine. No word on whether or not the heroine was released on her own personal recognizance.

A terrific overview of the oil situation in Saudi Arabia, which also explores OPEC's genius use of "fuzzy math" can be found in this somewhat lengthy New York Times article from Sunday. A really good and informative read if you're looking to get your feet wet on the seriousness of the subject.

Quickly on baseball: while we're obviously happy to see the Red Sox maintaining their hold on first place in the American League East, I've been feeling the same nagging thoughts since around May - that this team is constantly teetering on the edge of a 15 game losing streak or something. They continue to defy that thought, however, so maybe it's just....all those years. I can't help but think their pitching is going to catch up to them, though. If not now, then certainly in October.

 

Back When Bell Biv Devoe Roamed Earth.....

OK, so a week or two ago I mentioned that my wife Stephanie has made the claim on several occasions that back in high school, I possessed a mullet. While I can never flatly deny this, my retort has always been that my hair may have toed the mullet line, but an argument could probably be made that I didn't. It's close. So let's put the vote out there to you, my reader(s):


Mullet or no mullet? In this picture, taken during the early part of my senior year, I personally don't detect a mullet of any sort. It seems more like a solid, full head of Greek hair to me. However, let's dig a little deeper into the high school yearbook and examine this one:



This is a picture of the three tri-captains of the hockey team, plus our coach. That's me on the right. Clearly my hair is getting closer to the mullet line in this picture, but again, an argument can be made that no mullet exists except for the other two captains, who clearly are mulleted. And who is that dork on the left, anyway?

I think where it might have gone all wrong for me was my first year in college at Kent State in Ohio. It was 1990, arguably the height of mullet-mania. Evidence clearly exists here that I was treading in deeper water, but this is probably as bad as it got.



So, there you have it. While I will readily admit that I probably, at one point or another, could have been mistakenly looped into the mullet club, I remain marginally adamant that I was just knocking on the door to the house party. I was never actually at the party, you see. Put in your votes.

 

You Warriors Are Good.......Real Good

I heard somewhere over the past couple of days that retail stores like Home Depot and Costco are getting themselves into the gasoline game. This could be fun. Should that happen anytime soon, I would expect some fireworks. You can be sure that retail outlets like these would view gasoline as a clear loss leader in order to get more bodies into their stores to buy the stuff with the fatter margins. So what happens when the 'ol Home Depot starts advertising gas prices .30 cents lower than your local Mobil? Do we get into a scenario where there's actually cars in gas lines again? Do the big boys like Exxon/Mobil flip out like the record labels did a few years ago when CD's were used as loss leaders in stores like Lechmere (ah, Lechmere, how we miss you). At the same time, companies like Exxon/Mobil understand that gas lines means demand and maybe they do sell their gas to Home Depot? Not a good PR move, though - it basically tells the customer they're being ripped off bigtime at actual Mobil & Exxon stations. Could be interesting. I don't know all that much about the gas business, myself, but this might be fun to watch.

Which brings me to my next question: at what price point do gas prices have to get before you really start to freak out and it becomes a real problem? We bitch about gas prices now, but it still doesn't seem to have stopped us (myself included) from doing anything we want to do. At what price point do you think we have a true problem on our hands? I'll be curious to see your opinions.

 

Never Going Back Again

Here's how ingrained some things become in your head from time to time: Despite now living in our own house for two years (to the day, in fact), the following happened to me recently: I was gathering a pile of clothes for laundry and just for a fleeting moment, I panicked and said to myself "shit - I have no quarters." It was just for a split second, really, but it kind of made me smile. For the last 14 of 16 years, laundry day consisted of me scrambling for quarters and this was the first time that quarter-panic hit me in the two years I haven't had to worry about it.

If this little story isn't a sign that I have writer's block right now, I don't know what is.

 

Here In My Car, I Feel Safest Of All

Add the title of "Automobile Reviewer" to the versatile Robot's list of talents. Seeing as though I've been without my car for the better part of two weeks, it's allowed me to experiment with rental cars. Ah, rental cars. That feeling of complete freedom to do 90mph on the highway. Or, uh, "test" out the brakes or turning angle. Good times, indeed. Over the past couple of days, I've had the opportunity to try out the brand new 2006 Chevrolet HHR. This is a new vehicle which just hit the showroom floors and the local Avis here in Maynard just happened to have one.

My short verdict: cool ride, but I would never buy it. As you can tell, they've taken some chances on the design. It's the old retro body/modern interior trick. While I do remain very optimistic that the U.S. automakers can bring the standards of quality up to match or even beat foregin cars, it will take time. Rome wasn't built in a day and all that blah blah blah.

So....the good. Finally, I've driven a Chevy that drives quite nicely. I really liked the tight steering and the smooth ride. The car, as you might imagine, drew many stares, something which I probably would have really enjoyed in my attention-starved years (what?) but now it makes me feel a little uncomfortable. Hell, even the toll-taker at Logan Airport gave me a smile and a big thumbs up and said "hey, nice car!" It was 1 am and I just wanted to get home.

I also really dug the interior. I'm a total sucker for a souped up interior. Give me the colors, the knobs, switches, buttons. Give it all to me. I don't even care if the buttons don't do a damn thing - load up that dashboard with nicely lit buttons or messages and I'm drooling like Pavlov's doggie. So there's some nice features about this interior - the radio display, even though the picture is a little fuzzy, is a step ahead in terms of intuitiveness - it actually displays the "100.7" and all your other saved stations right there on the screen so you don't have to remember that "100.7" is preset #1. Nice touch. The driver displays (MPH, RPM, etc) are stylishly retro. Nice job, Chevy. For once.

Yuck: visibility is atrocious. Trying to see out the back is a complete disaster, due to what seems like a one square foot window back there and for some reason, objects in the rear view mirrors seemed further than they actually appeared. That must be a first. While the radio display screen was good, the knobs were badly located, causing me to take my eyes off the road more than once. I should assume that the more you drive the car, the more you get used to it, but you never know. It was a definite minus. What I would never get used to is that all four buttons for the power windows are located in the center console under the knobs for the heat & AC. A horrific idea.

All in all, the important factor here is that I've driven an American car that I didn't get out of and immeadiately puke about. It's actually been quite a long time since that has happened for me. When I look at Detroit's output over the past 20 years, it hasn't been one of innovation or quality. But take a look around. The HHR is an obvious response to the PT Cruiser, despite Chevy's consistant denial of it. But other, newer designs coming out of Detroit bring lots of hope - the Pontiac Solstice looks like quite a bargain and a nice little sports car. Ford's Escape Hybrid is a promising start to their green initiative. Other cars like the Chrysler Pacifica, the Dodge Magnum and the beautiful newly designed Ford Mustang all bring hope to what has been a long drought for the U.S. carmakers. I won't be rushing out to buy one anytime soon, but when I do, they very well might be in the crosshairs.

 

Act now, my great great great great great grandchildren!

I should remind you yet again - what The Onion publishes are large helpings of sarcasm. Or is it?

My two favorite quotes:

"As admirable as Mr. Bush's visionary pronouncement is, I worry that the timetable he proposes is far too ambitious," General Motors CEO Richard Wagoner Jr. said. "It is simply not realistic. The automotive industry would require an additional three or four thousand years to develop engines that can run effectively on renewable or cleaner-burning fuels."

"Mobil Oil has already made great strides in protecting the precious air and water within the television-commercial environment. And we plan to golf closely with the U.S. Department of Energy and oil-industry lobbyists to ensure that President Bush's initiative comes to pass in the unimaginably distant future."

 

The Green Green Grass Of Home

You have to love this. I'm sitting here in Los Angeles, California this morning, after arriving here from Boston last night at midnight eastern time. I have a meeting today at 11am pacific time, then I get right back on the plane and fly home, scheduled to land around 1am eastern time tonight. Total time spent in California: roughly 19 hours, 7 of which were spent asleep and 30 minutes of which were spent at In & Out Burger. What time is it? Where am I?

When I return home, there's a brand new Dell PC waiting for me. Nice. The process of moving all the files we've amassed on our current machine to the new one should be interesting. Does anyone have any suggestions on best way to do this? I bought a USB-to-USB file transfer cord, so I'm going to try that, but if anyone has any suggestions, I'm all ears. Or eyes. I wonder how long it'll take to move the 30GB of music I have? Or all the photos I've taken over the past two years on the digi-cam?

On the much lighter side, I can't help but laugh pretty hard at StuffOnMyCat.com, which, as the name very well may indicate, is a site where people put stuff on their cat and take pictures. Hilarious.

 

Back Of A Car

About two months ago, we had our house painted. In the span of about a week, it went from the nastiest shade of light, lime-green to a completely acceptable and sharp dark gray. With that, we've now pretty much completely facelifted the entire house, inside and out, in the two years (almost to the day) that we've lived here. Sometimes I even forget what it looked like the day we saw it during that open house. Thankfully, Steph took lots of pictures.

Anyway, having spent all that money (shit adds up, you know), we were pretty psyched to chill out, dump something into savings and enjoy some time. Today, for instance, we spent some time swimming at Walden Pond, which was, uh, probably not as quiet as when Thoreau was there. Nonetheless, water was good. Refreshing.

Anyway, during that time when the house was being painted, our painters - oops - dropped a ladder on my car, doing $1800 in damage to the roof and rear-drivers quarter. The car was in the shop for roughly two weeks and returned to me shiny and fixed about a week ago. My plan all along was that as soon as I got it back from the repair shop, I'd bring it in for the 45,000 mile scheduled maintenance. I've been meticulous about oil changes and scheduled maintenance and this time was no different. Or was it?

Expecting to spend $245 plus tax for the maintenance and state inspection, I got a phone call a few hours later. I would imagine the look on my face was no different than Alan Embree's all season long when he pitched for Boston as balls flew out of the yard at a merciless rate. Blank stare. Something about brakes, brake fluid, brake lights, blah blah. Instead of $245 for my scheduled maintenance, the bill will now read........you guessed it, $1800. I have to wonder if the insurance company who paid for the ladder damage somehow got into cahoots with Toyota? Of course not, but the coincidence in strange, indeed.

And why did I buy a Toyota? Why, for it's high respect in the auto market and its nearly impeccable maintenance, or lack thereof! Yet, here I am at 45,000 miles with brakes made of melted cheese. Then there's the whole question of if I'm getting fleeced. What do you say to a guy who says your brakes are nearly gone? "Don't change them, I'll take the risk and save the money?" Nope. Ah well.....

Peter Jennings died Sunday. That's sad. Ibrahim Ferrer also died - sad, also. Who will celeb #3 be?

 

On My Honor I Will Do My Best To Safely Construct Tents & Stay The Hell Off Of Large Open Fields During Thunderstorms

Gosh, the Boy Scouts are falling all over the place this year. First there was that terrible incident in Virginia when scout leaders tried to construct a tent and the metal top hit some power lines. The avoidance of power lines when you have metal-topped tents - should't that be in the Boy Scout manual? To add insult to injury, several scouts and leaders had to be treated for heat-related health problems, which prompted President Bush to cancel his appearance there, adding "wimp" to various adjectives used to describe him.

Then there's also been a string of lightning strikes, both in Ohio and Utah. What the heck? Or maybe this is like that year when the press seemed addicted to reporting shark attacks a few years ago - the amount of incidents isn't any different, it's simply the amount of press coverage that's changed. Who knows.

 

Yesterday's Songs Don't Stay Around Long

I'm picking up on a post my friend Matt wrote on Monday, regarding Neil Diamond and The Who. The post centers around this recent Rick Rubin quote:

"Neil Diamond is one of my all-time favorite artists," the producer [Rubin] says. "The live show is simply amazing. [Diamond's 1972 double-album] `Hot August Night' is probably my favorite live album. He's got better songs on it than [The Who's] `Live at Leeds.'"

While Matt thankfully claims he has nothing against Neil Diamond, he does proceed to poop on Rubin's claim that "Hot August Night" has better songs on it than The Who's "Live At Leeds." This is a really, really tough call. Sadly, when you say the name Neil Diamond today, most people immeadiately direct their thoughts to sequins, 1970's lighting and cheesy early '80s ballads "Turn On Your Heart Light" and "You Don't Bring Me Flowers." What a lot of people don't realize is that Diamond's rise to prominence was far more about leather, smoking weed and rock 'n' roll. Really. "Hot August Night" showcased Diamond's stunning stage presence backed up by hit after hit after non-hit of stellar performances and songs. That album is a live rock album and it's a complete tour de force.

Take the last five songs, for example. "Song Sung Blue," "Cracklin Rosie, "Holly Holy," "I Am....I Said" and "Brother Love's Traveling Salvation" run the gamut from pretty ballads to catchy pop songs to rawk, baby. Rawk! It is, quite possibly, one of the most energetic live rock albums ever laid to wax. If you don't think songs like "Cherry Cherry" or "Done Too Soon" will move your ass, you are mistaken.

Naturally, Matt's perceived claim about Live At Leeds certainly holds water. As a live act, The Who were simply unstoppable. Mean, lean, hungry and full of loud bite, Live At Leeds is a rock band at it's peak. I've recently been treated to some early live Who on the HD channel Comcast offers and everytime I watch a piece of it, I feel like that Maxell guy sitting in his recliner from those ads in the 1980's. You just feel like someone hit the gas and you're doing 140 mph after 8 seconds. They were a rocketship of a band. On "...Leeds," in fact, listening to the rat-a-tat-tat of "Substitute," "Happy Jack," and "I'm A Boy," in succession is about as delightful as it can get, as those are probably three of my favorite Who songs.

Force me to choose, though, and I have to agree with Rick Rubin. Diamond's "Hot August Night" has the better song selection and the ranges Diamond offers are more appealing to me than the all-out assualt of "Live At Leeds." What I love about Earth and being alive is that I'll never have to choose. They're both powerful statements from powerful artists.