Chimes of memory

As seen on my Twitter feed yesterday, I got the Steely Dan jones thing goin' on and decided that I was going to listen to all of the first wave (1972-1980) of their output. Decided to go alphabetical for a change-up; a little jarring - I've listened to them for a good 6 months out of the year every year since 1987, so at the end of a track, I'm thinking of the next album track. I know, I should have real problems, right?

But anyway, what invariably happens when I set myself a reading/watching/listening project is that something else comes up as a memory sync. This is why I pull my DVDs in 3s (more on that next week.)

So, about halfway through the listen, I start thinking of Pavement, that awesome alt-rock band from the 1990s. Why? At first blush, you'd think that they have nothing in common, right? Well, how about an idiosyncratic lead singer and inscrutable lyrics?

But another way that they chime each other for me is that both acts get a bad rap for being elitist or snobby.

And I just don't get that, especially in the case of Steely Dan. Despite the jazz inflection, the aforementioned lyrical bent, the aversion to feeding the pop machine, everything these guys did was to serve the song.

But the thrust of this post is to ask, what movies/songs/books/comics/etc. chime each other in your mind?

Here's two of mine - let me know yours:

When I watch Soderbergh's sex, lies and videotape, after Peter Gallagher beats up James Spader, throws him out of his own house and starts to watch the tape of Andie MacDowell, watching him stand there, about to have truth revealed to him, I automatically think of Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, when Dave Bowman unplugs HAL and the pre-recorded message kicks in, revealing the true nature of their mission.

Also, at the beginning of Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, there is an image of flame reflected in someone's eye. That connects to Tony (Ridley's brother, as it turns out) Scott's Revenge when Anthony Quinn burns down Kevin Costner's cabin and the flames are reflected in his sunglasses.

What have you?

A Quick One from 7-11

Took my little one to 7-11 to get some ice cream and was looking at the Slurpee promotional for the G.I. Joe film coming out in August and was reminded of the fact that someone had said to me a few months back, "What the fuck is Dennis Quaid doing, making a G.I. Joe movie?"

Typically, I'd lob back, "Well, everyone's gotta take one for the mortgage." But I was in a charitable mood and decided to go somewhat the higher road. So, respectfully, I submitted that it looked like it was a fun movie to make and that he probably had a fun time making it. Furthermore (and moreover, to boot), it looked like it was going to make some money, which would in turn make some money for Mr. Quaid.

And I was also reminded that over 20 years ago, when Who Framed Roger Rabbit was about to come out, that I said to myself and all around me, "What the fuck is Bob Hoskins doing, making a half-animated Disney film?" I mean, I had seen him in A Prayer for the Dying with Mickey Rourke, a good drama with some things to think on. And he'd been in Mona Lisa, as good a film as the 1980s British film renaissance produced (you can throw in The Long Good Friday and I won't argue.) Hell, he was in Brazil, one of the best movies EVER. So you can see where I was coming from.

Of course, Who Framed Roger Rabbit came out, did monster business and even better, got great notices for Hoskins' performance, leading him to make some more good movies. (Another "Of course", of course, is that he went on to make Super Mario Brothers, which TOTALLY screws my thesis in more than one way here. Shhhh.)

But it taught me something - Bob Hoskins is smarter than me. That's why he gets to MAKE movies and I just have to WATCH them.

And now we're back to Dennis Quaid. Can't wait to watch this one.

"The Boys of Summer" and that line

Once again, I'd like to take the opportunity to mention that this is the 25th anniversary of 1984, the greatest year for music ever.

One of the many, many great releases from that year was Don Henley's "The Boys of Summer" from Building the Perfect Beast. The album has plenty of high points besides this single, although it's not as good as his 1982 debut, I Can't Stand Still. Henley was one of my two first musical heroes (along with Lindsey Buckingham), years before I discovered Springsteen, Prince and the fact that heroes eventually suck almost as much as having heroes (a lesson brought on by most of Henley's post-1984 material among other things)

The linchpin of the single is, of course, the line "Out on the road today, I saw a Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac", a line so indelibly brilliant, it even eclipses the fact that he needed to explain it in the following line. I invite any of you reading this to produce a line as good or better than that.

Now, in 2003, a band called The Ataris covered the song, changing the key line to "...a Black Flag sticker on a Cadillac", which doesn't work the same for me. But what it does achieve is this and follow me 'round the horn here:

• Don Henley rises to fame in a band called the Eagles. Said band comes to represent for many the corporatization of rock music, leading those many to become...
• ...punk rockers! Punk goes through many phases and guises over 15 years until Nirvana breaks through, paving the way for the recombinant bastard called (by me, at least) "corporate punk", epitomized by bands like, well, The Ataris, who pay homage to Don Henley, instead of, I don't know, maybe Joe Strummer, Joey Ramone or even John Lydon.
• Kurt Cobain wonders if he should have pulled the trigger instead of continuing on in the path he opened with Unplugged in New York, which was in 1994 as "punk as fuck" as "punk as fuck" got.

All of this was brought on by driving behind a Hyundai Santa Fe with a Descendants sticker on the back today.

Thoughts on Music

The wife and I were driving the other day and I'm playing Prince's 1999, for a piece I'm doing. As the songs are going by, I'm throwing out little tidbits of trivia and working out bits for the piece, and wife turns to me and says, "Can't you just enjoy music?"

wow.

But, to me, talking about things is enjoying them. I mean, it's not like I haven't listened to 1999 for well over 25 years, haven't sung the songs, watched the videos, etc. I've enjoyed this album; I've also bought the living hell out of it as well - vinyl, then CD, then on cassette thanks to a garage sale and I would get it on iTunes (lost the CD), but I think they have a botched version. Hey, I've enjoyed this album.

So, we have the age old saw - "Writing about music is like dancing about architecture" - which has been the basis for quite a bit of discussion as to who first said it - see here or this site, by an all-round good guy, Rob Brookman. Hey, here's a thought - what if the 'about' isn't 'of; concerning; in regard to', but actually 'on every side of; around'? That'd put a new twist on it, wouldn't it?

Anyway, I reject the notion that to respond to artistic expression is somehow wrong. Not everyone can create a song, a film, a comic book; all of us, however, can experience it and react to it. Some of us even feel inspired to write about it. Doesn't that constitute art in and of itself? Especially when art or Art or "Art" can be seen as a person's voluntary response to his surroundings. When you get right down to it, it's almost scientific - pure input/output.

Another thing I've been grappling with the nature of is lyrics. How important are they? Do you like lyrics that are literal or somewhat more obscure, esoteric, evocative? Gun to my head, I have to fall down on the latter side. Lyrics that are literal tend to, after a while, just lie there. Either they're topical, and become anachronistic, or they just say the same thing over and over. On the other hand, lyrics that are less obvious as to their meaning(s) have a longer life with me, as they involve me in the song as much as the guitar or rhythm. Also, depending on the state/situation I'm in, certain lyrics will change as surely I am changing. (I also find that there are two types of people when it comes to horoscopes - those who read them early in the day and then take every event as it comes and bend it to the horoscope and those who reflect upon their days at the end of them and say, "Oh, that's what that meant...")

Nothing's ever in stone, though. Whereas over the last decade I've favored bands like Pavement and Interpol, whose lyrics are inscrutable to the point of frustration, I'll then hear a song like the Mountain Goats' "Woke Up New". As the narrator finds himself without his lover for the first time, he catalogs the world around him and finds he's reacting differently to mundane things. This is nowhere near anything new in the world of pop music, but John Darnielle takes care to bring a new twist to old themes.

Thoughts, anyone?

Addendum: Just iTuned 1999 - it's fine, not an edited version at all. Look for the piece this week

Random thoughts

Happy New Year, all (both?) of you out there!

Besides the obvious and cliched resolutions, here's a few me-centric ones that I'm going to try and keep this year.

1. Listen to more new music, as opposed to mainly reissues of 15 (or more)-year-old stuff that I should have listened to when it came out.
2. Read more big-boy books. Yes, I love my comics, but they don't read well on the bus.
3. Read less shitty comics. 2008 was not a good year with me and the 32-page, 4-color floppy, but I had some December revelations that bode well for my relationship with the sequential narrative.
   
4. Now that my free 1-year subscription to Rolling Stone magazine has run out, I shall never read it again. I will, however, continue to explore my conflicted history (roughly half my life) with it, culminating with a piece intending to prove that the magazine actually did its level best to stunt my musical development while I was reading it.
5. Write more about TV. It's easily my favorite medium for artistic expression and where I spend the majority of the post-dinner, post-kids-in-bed time, so why not sing it from this mountain?