Rumblings ...

      Dang, four years. I'd apologize, for abandoning this little project, but to whom? At best, you could say I got dragged into the social media hole. At worst, I just got dragged.

     2012-2014 were horrible years. The worst. My Program Director committed violent suicide, via handgun, in February of 2012, after having been undermined for years. Over the course of the next few months, depression and cognitive dissonance set in as I came to finally understand that I was never going to be anything more than window dressing there, and for people who wouldn't have lasted more than six weeks with my previous employers. That's an arrogant thing to say, I suppose. That kind of knowledge breeds hubris, and it didn't endear me to anyone. Especially the station accountant who was set to become the VP of programming, a background move which was set in early 2102 and never even announced to the rest of the station until .. well I don't know if there ever was any kind of memo, I just know that the rest of the air-staff had no clue, even a year later when I got canned. And so from April or May of 2012 and for the next two years, I spent most of my non-work related time in bed, with the comforters pulled up over my head.

      Should I manage to find any discipline, to return to writing in general and this blog in specific, the topics won't be contained to entertainment. Just fair warning.

     In recent years, I repeatedly find myself returning to a thread of thought, about how the atmosphere around the 1970s anti-Disco movement has re-emerged in social media and politics. In coming times, I hope to fully articulate my feelings, thoughts, and opinions in a coherent narrative. I think a massive chunk of what's going on in our political divisions, is at least partly — and a pretty huge one, actually — the result of how the emergence of rock radio dovetailed with business interests, and how the advertising/marketing industry was engaged to assist in carving out a cultural identity for rockists. I believe we are in a societal arena that's very similar to the anti-disco backlash, due to social media, and now that we are all thrust back into a cultural marketplace with few massive communities instead of tons of smaller ones, the battle is on for whose culture or subculture will be dominant. And the people running for various offices are using it.

So .. if I can find and hang onto the necessary discipline, you'll see more on that.

- MB

January Sounds (or, I'm stumped for a pithy title)

    What's become an interesting year-end / year-beginning ritual for music lovers is the BBC's "Sound of" lists, something they started doing in 2003 when they chose 50 Cent as the act to watch. Their record hasn't been 100%; often, it goes like American Idol in that the runners' up are the most interesting, and have the better careers. In that first year the rest of the top 5 included Electric Six, The Thrills, and Yeah Yeah Yeahs. #6? Interpol.

     2004 was another successful class, with Keane topping a poll that included Franz Ferdinand, Joss Stone, and Scissor Sisters. 2005? A bit of an off year. The Bravery came in first, Kaiser Chiefs at 5, and KT Tunstall at 6. And it's not that they were lacking, but lasting chart power wasn't a factor in that year's list. 2008. Now there was a class. Adele, Duffy, Ting Tings, Glasvegas, Foals, Vampire Weekend, Joe Lean & The JJJ, Black Kids, MGMT, and Santigold — only two of those ten haven't gone anywhere since.

     So, there're some good calls and bad. Some with shit-tons of artistic merit, and some pure bubblegum. This year's top pick is a kid named Sam Smith and his voice is heavenly, but the arrangements are the stuff pop confection is made of. Listen to him on Disclosure's "Latch" for a less RickRoll-worthy experience.

    California's BANKS and Chicagoan Chance the Rapper comprise the interesting Americans on the list. What's really got me worked up at present, though, is a young Bristol kid named George Ezra. #5. Little skinny blonde kid with a voice that would make Mississippi blues and Dave Wakeling fans, alike, blink. Twice.

      Ezra got early support from a local BBC outlet, started doing open mic nights, found himself at Glastonbury in the summer of 2013, and is now signed to Sony and working with Class of 2009 graduate Lady Gaga's publicist. Already, people are looking for a repeat Jake Bugg phenomena, or is it just the deservedly cynical UK press? You can't blame them/us. So many times, we've been hyped on some piece of schlock with a too-good-to-be-true origin story. Ezra sounds like he's got the goods, regardless. Let's just hope he can stay away from the producers-du-jour.

      One thing, a little disquieting, is the marketing agreements that are already in place. Apparently there's some kind of Burberry fashion connection. Kind of reminds me of how a Nashville Americana band had a Stetson endorsement before their album even came out. Can't anything stand on its own, anymore?

       Speaking of the home team, among Nashville's newer residents is guitar slinger / songwriter Aaron Lee Tasjan. Originally from Ohio, Tasjan landed in NY in the aughts, in the original lineup of Semi Precious Weapons. The band was hot on the glam scene and destined for great things, but they weren't the kind of great things Tasjan wanted, and so he walked away from Gagaland (yes, two Gaga connections in one post. Dig it) into the decidedly more rootsy and down-to-earth Madison Square Gardeners. Even though that band wasn't very long lived, it put him in the same scene as people like Kevn Kinney and Todd Snider, who talked Tasjan into moving to Nashville. Between playing with SPW and bringing his solo act here, he's managed to share stages with the likes of the NY Dolls, Golden Palominos, Tim Easton and Drivin' n' Cryin'. In the latter case, he's their current guitarist.

       Like all the hard-working kids in town, Aaron Lee Tasjan's been out on the road almost since he got here. Keep your eyes peeled for his next local gig. This was at the Stone Fox, in December.

   

2013 Countdown Finish ... and the Top 5 Songs Are

5. Vampire Weekend - Diane Young

     This became a song people either loved or hated. I fell on the love side; it was like Elvis on steroids.

        

4. Macklemore & Lewis - Thrift Shop

    Backlash over this song, but particularly the video, developed over the song's send-up of commercial hip-hop culture. More on that further down the list but the important ingredient here is thrift shopping has long been the province of young, creative people in low-paying jobs. And $50 t-shirts deserve all the ridicule they garner.

3. Disclosure - When a Fire Starts to Burn
     
      UK brothers Guy and Howard Lawrence have been called 2013's stealth success. They were still living in their parents' home and taking festivals by storm last summer and hypnotizing people with the likes of ...

     

2. Lorde - Royals

     So ... about that backlash over criticism of hip-hop culture. Between "Thrift Shop," Lily Allen's "Hard Out Here," and "Royals," hubcaps and gold overlays took a minor stabbing. Are the complaints valid? I don't know. Perhaps. If so, they are no more (or less) valid than womens' complaints about 25 years of bitch/ho.

1. Kanye West - Black Skinhead

      And then there was this. Did someone say "bitch"? Why yes, actually.

Quick Take on The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

       I saw the flick this afternoon. If you're a JRR Tolkien purist, you probably won't care for it — unless you're also a huge action fan and maybe a whitewater enthusiast. Peter Jackson has um ... Jacksonized the flick and turned it into a Lord of the Rings prequel that threatens the suspension of disbelief for the latter.  As a result, some of the best things about Hobbit 2 are also the things that also make it kind of dodgy.

Highlights: 

     Visually it's a 3D-elight, if you decide to view it in that media. The movie opens with a dark orc chase that quickly gives way to a sun-filled, airy meadow, with bumblebees flittering around the screen.

      The Mirkwood elves' hangout. Of the three elf kingdoms, Mirkwood Hall is a little more decadent than Rivendell or Lothlorian. But it's also more tree-ier and looks more like a place you'd expect to see elves. (Did I really just type that?)

      Bilbo above the treetops. It's funny how such a simple scene was such a memorable passage, in the book.

      Bilbo and Smaug and Holmes & Watson. As UK tv's current Sherlock Holmes (and the most stylish man in the universe, since Bowie) Benedict Cumberbatch is making a lot of people his bitch these days. As Smaug, he gets outwitted by his Watson, Martin Freeman as Bilbo. Cute, huh?

    Gandalf gets attacked by formless, black smoke Sauron, who turns into Burning Slit Sauron as a result of Gandalf's defense spells (I think). 

    River Barrel Chase. As a kayaker, this may be the result of some bias on my part, but that looks like one badass run.

    Bard!

    Legolas! 


Not so much

    Legolas! I know, right? Orlando Bloom is always a welcome sight, but there's something that's just wrong about a scene with a Legolas that looks 10 years older than he was in the LotR movies, meeting Gloin, father of Gimli, several decades before LotR takes place.

    Mirkwood Spiders. That whole business was kind of a let down, compared to the book.

    The Sauron reveal is another instance where you wanna go, 'hey gee, cool,' before you wonder, if they knew this cat was out of the bag this early in the story, why didn't they start coming up with a Destroy Sauron plan much earlier?

   No emotional connection to the story. Or very little of it, anyway. There's an elf/dwarf (Legolas, Kili, and the newly introduced Tauriel) love triangle that got added into the mix, but even that doesn't seem to hold up as any kind of sweepstakes. Considering what we know of LotR, it's a safe bet Legolas is going to wind up single, anyway.

  
    Overall: It's a good popcorn movie; the craft that went into it was superb. On the down side, its soul is missing. You don't get the feeling the movie makers love these characters the way they did in Jackson's other Tolkien trilogy. When you consider that was a much shorter book, and it's getting three installments, you'd think someone would have taken a little more time for that.

2013 Countdown Continued (15 Songs)

At this point it starts getting hard, with self-second-guessing as the new hobby. At this point, almost any of the next ten songs could get my vote for #1, depending on what day it is and what I'm doing.

But ...

10. James Blake - Retrograde

            White soul doesn't get much whiter or much more soulful than this. Blake evoked early '80s UK acts, but traded out the fromage for some knob fiddling, taking home the Mercury Prize as a reward. 

9. Volcano Choir - Byegone

     Justin Vernon's other band, or one of them, has been kicking around since 2005. This summer saw their second release, Repave.  If the Bon Iver chorals put you off, you can relax. The guitar does the soaring on this one.

8. NONONO - Pumpin Blood

          What is it with the Swedes? They were all over the place this year, in pop, rock, and post-rock all.  In NONONO's case, it's pop of the infectious kind.

           

7. Valerie June - Twined and Twisted

          There are an unlimited number of gorgeous songs on the debut of Brooklyn-via-West Tennessee's Valerie June. Though initial hype focused on June's collaboration with Dan Auerbach, the ageless, deep-South, soulful country songs are the ones that leave an imprint long after the player has moved onto the next song in the shuffle.

6. Phosphorescent - Song for Zula

      And another from a deep South native, gone to NYC. Alabaman Matt Houck  made the album of his life, in the aftermath of that life falling apart. "Song For Zula" not only stood "Ring of Fire" on its head, it also became an anthem for anyone with a tired-of-love gripe to whine about.

 

My Top Songs of 2013 Countdown

 I'll be doing this over the course of the next few days, 5 tunes per day.


 15. Daft Punk - Get Lucky

            2013 was the year dance music got its due. Funny thing, just as EDM was officially recognized as a force to be reckoned with, Daft Punk reunited and gave us the old school with Nile Rogers, himself, contributing.

14. Atoms for Peace - Ingenue

            Speaking of dancey things, Thom Yorke's little side project became a full-fledged entity, complete with tour that even stopped in Nashville.

13. Franz Ferdinand - Goodbye Lovers & Friends

     Four years after Tonight: Franz Ferdinand pissed off the indie boys club, they came back with the slightly better-received Right Words, Right Thoughts, Right Action.  Though there were plenty of pop-ready tunes on the album and two or three radio-ready singles, the lyrics on "Goodbye Lovers and Friends" show a protagonist self-directing their future funeral, in all of Alex Kapranos' biting glory.

Don’t wear bright colours
You know I hate bright colours
I never liked you for the way you dressed
Anyway

The groove is the icing.

12. The National - Demons

     2013 was also the year The National earned the respect to transcend their indie-darling status and start making the jump to bonafide pop culture.

 
11. Deerhunter - Dream Captain

        Indie rock was all over the place this year. This track stood out for me for the sheer power-pop noisiness, that didn't get old within the space of three weeks.  Big ear worm.

Where Is My Mind: Revisiting the Revisiting of the Pixies

    A few nights ago I was at a concert and got into a conversation with a friend, about the headliner's new single and what it signified.  

     As the 1990s came to an end, Fight Club became a cultural touchstone for disaffected Gen-X, particularly white males. Chuck Palahniuk's story of a DID-plagued white-collar worker touched a nerve with a generation that marked the split between the time when you could have a blue collar job and provide for a family, or not. Those who took the collegiate route to success were getting into condos and McMansions, filled with Bohemian Bourgeois trappings, while their lower-income peers seemed to disappear first from their lives, and then from any significance in popular culture altogether, once Roseanne was cancelled by ABC.

   We had a metrosexual president who felt our pain and had notorious affairs, when he wasn't caught up in the humanitarian war on the Balkans and shepherding NAFTA and GATT, the trade agreements that took away so many well-paying blue collar jobs. The buffoonish masculinity of WWF was no longer the province of 12 year olds, big money cracked the demographic wide open.

   In this atmosphere, Fight Club became a beacon; it offered a convenient and highly entertaining answer to the masculinity crisis without challenging its audience to rush out of the theatre and take action. In the end, the movie taught us, nihilism offers a solution that demands nothing and has no consequences.

   Hearing the obscure Pixies song, "Where Is My Mind," as buildings fell and then over the end credits, that was just icing on the cake.

   But from there, an odd thing happened:  a song that pretty much no one among Pixies' fans ever considered to be among the band's finest moments, spent the next 10 years becoming the song that has come to define that band in today's music culture. If you asked a Pixies fan in 1988 to name their favorite songs, they might tell you about "Gigantic," "Bone Machine," "Cactus," or "Nimrod's Son." If you asked them again, in 1990, they'd add "Velouria," "Monkey Gone to Heaven," "Debaser," and "Here Comes Your Man." Ask again in three more years, and "U Mass," and "Alec Eiffel" would have been additions.

   If you asked anyone prior to Fight Club what their favorite Pixies songs were, "Where Is My Mind" barely pinged the radar, even among huge fans. Could have been any number of reasons but for my money the most likely one is that people who came to the Pixies anywhere between 1987 and, say, 1994 weren't there for the drone, and they certainly weren't there for the traditional rock structure this song incorporates more of than most of their other work. Speaking for myself and what I can recall of my friends' opinions, we were there for the twisted pop. We were there for Black Francis' shrieks, his and Kim Deal's delicious vocal interplay, the helter-skelter surf-punk guitar work, and occasionally, like on "Monkey Gone to Heaven," Joey Santiago's premo leads.

   And we were there to release joy. Which is why it bothers me, and some others, that revisionists have made "Where Is My Mind" so heavy on the scale that it threatens the band's legacy of subversive pop.

   In 2012, Stereogum published a list of "The Best Pixies Songs."  5 of the 10 were never high on anyone's radar and 6, if you took the Fight Club factor out of the equation. The #1? "Tame."

   "Tame" was an okay tune. The best part of it was the line, "Lips like Cinderella," and the staccato guitar lick, fine. But honestly? Nothing else about it was very memorable. For most people, "Tame" was the short interlude between "Debaser" and "Wave of Mutilation," and that's pretty much it.

  In the comments to the article, the list was challenged, especially by people who thought it was nuts that songs like "Monkey Gone to Heaven" and "Here Comes Your Man" weren't on the list. I thought this response was interesting:

I really don’t think that “Monkey Gone to Heaven” is a no-brainer to make the list, though. It’s a good song, but I would not consider it one of my top 20 favorites. That song and “Here Comes Your Man” are two songs that seem to belong more to that moment in time, whereas some of their other songs have a strange weirdness that is timeless.

     Now, this isn't the response of the journalist who put the list together, but I find it highly typical of some millennials I've worked with in radio; they have a hard time differentiating between their personal favorites and quality that's going to have a broad appeal. I think a huge part of that has to do with "serious" popular music failure to evolve or, more directly, serious popular music promoters' failure to do their jobs when it comes to youth.

   Due to the huge financial success of rock music — 40 years ago — the part of the music industry that serves young white males doesn't want to let go. The catastrophic error could not have been made more clear to me than it was one beautiful Sunday morning when I was kayaking on the Duck River in Normandy, about 90 minutes Southeast of Nashville. As I came around a bend in the river, I passed two young men, probably in their early 20s, in a fishing boat. Poles out, the iPod on, and they were listening to hip hop. In the middle of outer-bumfuck, Tennessee.

   And because we've got a music industry that refuses to let go of rock, in spite of today's piss-poor record sales, we've got a group of young'uns (that segment that didn't find hip-hop) are identifying with music that's 4th or even 5th generation spin cycle. No matter how talented some of these artists might be, they aren't using those talents to come up with a single original idea. And we've been stuck here ever since Nevermind was unleashed and Alternative's turn to the left was effectively killed.

   So the only thing for millennials and younger to do to hear something that actually was kind of, sort of, brilliant, they're stuck going back to 1989 — and trying to make it their own.  It's no wonder some people might have a problem with that. To draw a comparison, imagine some '80s hipster writing in Rolling Stone or Musician magazines and creating such a list for ... say, the Doors. And listing "Maggie M'Gill" as the best Doors song, ever. You know damn well their editor would laugh them out of the room.

  Where do we go from here? The current folk revival offers some promise, but there's a lot of it that's simply Rock music with Bluegrass instruments.

  Oh, wait. Guess the show I was at the other night ...