October 2004 Archives

Dear AB,

Well I suppose steal it once (and Hunter Thompson is convinced Jeb wantsta be Prez) they could try again. Only it would be ten times harder this time, and for some reason I'm distrustful of how close the polls claim it is. First off I think people are intimidated by pollsters and give answers they don't fully believe just to "sound smart," second pollsters have always readjusted methods after an election proved them wrong, it's a constantly evolving "science" with variables like the weather, who won the series and all that stuff that's out of anybody's control. Kerry has run a hardcore, disciplined campaign, at least since September, but Bush rebounded by the third debate even if he was lying his ass off and refusing to answer key questions (back-door draft the key example). But everything's broken bad for W. since then, this week being the worst: stolen explosives denied, rebutted, and finally left dangling (Giuliani did the UNTHINKABLE: blamed the TROOPS); it's pretty clear this was a huge fuckup and they're flailing. That COULD be enough to tip it, but Rove is a cunning bastard, and I'm surprised he hasn't pulled even dirtier tricks: my sister-in-law was convinced they had capture Bin Laden and would announce it this weekend. However, the Sox won the series, so we live in EXTRAORDINARY times, and I find myself hopeful against all reason and experience.

Prediction: sore winners will make pitiful losers.

And if Kerry loses, we'll know how they all felt about Adlai Stevenson.

whoosh, Tim

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Dear ML,

I feel as though I've been waiting a long time to meet the person who could put me in touch with "That's Where I Went Wrong" by the Poppy Family. I don't know why this particular song had a hold on me, but it's curious what I remembered most: the voice, the tone, the self-pitying bus trip. I didn't remember the song's hook, the ring image, the phony key change, the minor modulation (which sounds flakey to me now) -- blame it on Canada! But it does capture a certain 70s sensibility that I was immersed in during that period of Top 40, and brings back our family's first few days in Pueblo, Colorado, in September of 1970, like nothing else. What does the rest of the Poppy Family's greatest hits sound like? Are there other hits I would remember?

Manana, Tim

Russ Baker makes the wires with this interview. Why do these folks wait until that last minute? It's enough to give you hope.

I still think Kerry never used a gnarly moral stick: admonishing Bush publicly for not attending a single soldier's funeral and disallowing coffin photos (and the press for complying).

BIG SHOUT
To Kate Sullivan's Pop Vultures radio program, carried by Minnesota Public Radio, availalable for streaming here.

RAVES
Wattstax HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE SOUNDTRACK (Stax)
Old school highlights: Staple Singers "Respect Yourself," Bar-Kays "Son of Shaft/Feel It," Albert King "I'll Play the Blues for You," waiting on the DVD.
Teenage Fan Club A SHORT CUT TO TEENAGE FANCLUB (Jetset)
Best Blurbs: "The best band in the world." -- Kurt Cobain (his heart's in the right place, as always)
"...er, the second-best band in the world." -- Liam Gallagher (where are they now?)

LEMONS:
Christine McVie IN THE MEANTIME (Koch)
Living Colour LIVE FROM CBGB's 12/19/89 (Epic/Legacy)
Weird sound, and no "Memories Can't Wait"

Ron Rosenbaum writes: "Whatever it was, it gets him on the road again: On the verge of dropping out, he now books two hundred concerts for the next year—and only illness (an infection around the heart, wouldn’t you know) has suspended this "endless tour" ever since. I suspect we ought to be grateful to the Dead, whatever they did or didn’t do to his drink. The entire section is wild: You rarely hear an artist of this magnitude talking so rhapsodically—and technically—about his own work. I look forward to musicians and musically minded critics like Tim Riley explicating this further... "

Next month, on WBUR.org. Let me just say: I'm wary of how Dylan's "memoirs" are getting covered.

Now just hold on a doggone minute: I look forward to musicians and musically minded critics like Tim Riley explicating this further...

Next month, on WBUR.org.

Jon Stewart gets jiggy on CROSSFIRE last week (video here):

STEWART: But let me ask you guys, again, a question, because we talked a little bit about, you're actually doing honest debate and all that. But, after the debates, where do you guys head to right afterwards?

CARLSON: The men's room.

STEWART: Right after that?

BEGALA: Home.

STEWART: Spin alley.

BEGALA: Home.

STEWART: No, spin alley.

BEGALA: What are you talking about? You mean at these debates?

STEWART: Yes. You go to spin alley, the place called spin alley. Now, don't you think that, for people watching at home, that's kind of a drag, that you're literally walking to a place called deception lane? (from CROSSFIRE transcript for 10/15/04...)

On second thought, Salon's Charlie Taylor says it far better.

We watched some of Springsteen's segment on the Vote for Change concert before the debate last night. Earlier, while flipping through some of the gawdawful interview "color" segments, I had heard some electric guitar noodling through the "Star Spangled Banner," and thought to myself: This should be marked "property of Hendrix" and left alone. Could anybody rediscover all the dread and racial tyranny of Vietnam that Hendrix caught in his searing, greet-the-Woodstock-dawn reverie? But then Bruce took the stage with an ACOUSTIC 12-STRING and did his own national anthem, and suddenly the song's violence and desperation came alive again, with all the references intact: this was the Boss doing Jimi doing Vietnam doing Iraq, and the analogies held fast. Hendrix's horrifying grandeur haunted Bruce's playing without overshadowing it, and half the terror was in hearing a black man's echoes of Vietnam while thinking about George W. Bush. It did more to refute the Swift Boat Liars than any debate could.

PS: "Guaranteed Not to Split" was written on John Lennon's first guitar.

PS2: Atrios links to this WMA video of Bush saying "I'm not that concerned..." about Bin Laden.

PS3: Following the SPIN magazine tip, I've tuned into http://www.littleradio.com, and I'm not looking back.

From Time magazine, we give you, THE WIFE:

"We teach little girls that we don't like them to be greedy, pushy or overly aggressive," says Sara Laschever, co-author of Women Don't Ask: Negotiation and the Gender Divide. "Once adulthood is reached, studies are conclusive that neither men nor other women like women who are too aggressive."

PLUS: Bob Dylan on NPR's Morning Edition, from yesterday. See also: Mikal Gilmore in RS, Charles Taylor in Salon. On my pile, filing for WBUR next month.

In this corner, the New Yorker music pages now boast Sasha Frere-Jones, Gary Giddins, and Alex Ross. In the other corner, David Denby never got Charlie Kaufman's ADAPTATION. But he's an obvious target. Here's Nancy Franklin in last week's New Yorker (courtesy of Greg.org's ongoing archive), arguing for the further propping up of Dan Rather:

Rather, Brokaw, and Peter Jennings are tops in their field; they go to the best parties and know everybody who's anybody; and they know a lot about the world. Still, they have to wake up every day and prove that they are not -- to use the word that invariably crops up when the traditional network-news format is batted around -- dinosaurs. Polls and ratings figures show that young people are not developing the warm, fuzzy feelings toward anchors that their elders supposedly have, and the networks have no idea whether what loyalty does exist will carry into the coming years once all three of the current anchors are gone. At the moment, CBS needs Rather. He is the face of the network, and if his face were suddenly to be absent -- if his face were fired, that is -- the CBS eye would look like a black hole, and you'd hear the wind whistling through the void. And then you'd turn the channel...

So we're supposed to trust these guys because "they go to the best parties," and presumably they don't speak to us directly -- in antiquated New Yorker-via-Kael-style m-dash asides -- in sentences we don't have to fight through like thickets of brush. If Rather is keeping CBS standing -- and what's one more m-dash to make the point -- the network has more trouble than the record industry. Franklin's is the worst excuse I've heard for the guy in the 20 years he's been hanging on by his fingernails -- and I'm not even gonna break up this sentence with a third m-dash. (Hasn't she ever heard of Harry Shearer?) That he's even a rumor anymore is for most people to turn the channel. Best thing CBS could do is hire a journalist to sit at that desk and start steering. Takes a guy like Rather to make Brokaw look like a hero for stepping down. Note to David Remnick: we want TOM CARSON! [Bonus points for anyone who can identify the source of this headline.]

I'm as big a fan of Keith Richards as anybody, and TALK IS CHEAP (1992) was widely hailed as a garage-rock triumph, circa 1965. But Reigning Sound's TOO MUCH GUITAR has captured that ring. In honor of Little Steven's Garage Festival Blowout (featuring Somerville's own The Charms) I've been listening a lot to Beyond the Beat Generation, and Reigning Sound captures more of this obscure spark than any band since the Lyres, and they run on their own curruscated fuel. Rhythmic melodies, melodic kicks, unselfconsciously simple yet brutal guitar solos and a vocalist who makes poetic with angst like so many cheap thrills. Glorious mess of sound.