I’m trying to figure out why I hate Bob Seger. For some reason, I woke up this morning with “Against the Wind” stuck in my head, which has prompted this re-evaluation. Ever since I’ve been alive, Seger’s been a part of my life and all over the radio. I’ve been inundated with his so-called Silver Bullet Band from the time I was a small child because my parents like him. And while he projects a really cool imagine, I think his most beloved songs–like “Rock And Roll Never Forgets” (his lame spelling of rock ‘n roll, not mine) is about as cool as “You’re Momma Don’t Dance” by Loggins and Messina. That’s not very cool.
Seger’s particular brand of blue-collar “heartland” rock has never really been my bag, but he has always struck me as sincere. More sincere than many other musicians in this category—I’m looking at you John Cougar Mellencamp. Seger’s a Detroit man and his affection for Motown is evident in his music, which is pretty damn cool for a white guy so he has that going for him. Now that I think about it, other than “Rock And Roll Never Forgets” the only other song of his that I absolutely can’t stand is “Old Time Rock and Roll.” And that’s probably due to a mix of it being overplayed and the fact that songs about rock ‘n roll tend to be lame.
I really like “Night Moves,” “Fire Down Below,” “Mainstreet,” and “Beautiful Loser.” There’s a live cut of his song “Katmandu” that I hear on the classic rock radio way too much that I alternate between loving and hating. Really when I step back and think about it, my problem isn’t with Seger, it’s with the people who have been programming classic rock radio for the past 25 years. As I’ve been writing this, I’ve been listening to NIGHT MOVES via YouTube (why Bobby, won’t you add your music to Spotify?) and I actually really dig the deeper cuts of the album. Turns out I probably don’t hate Bob Seger. He still reminds me of my Dad a little too much and his backing band has a name that makes me think of crappy beer…but overall I guess I really am a Bob Seger fan.
The moral of this story is: take time every now and then to ponder why you don’t (or do) like something. Take it apart and if your dislike makes sense, then fine. But if not…you’re just being an asshole.
Welcome to the second installment of my semi-irregular series Rock ‘N Mailbag! For a few months now, I’ve been getting solicitations via email from independent artists wishing me to review their albums. I’m not sure how these people are finding me, but rather than dismiss them, I’ve decided to listen to them and give them a little love.
Pop-rockers What, Really? hail from Italy, that magical boot-shaped wonderland of vino and pasta. Though their email described the band as a “power pop” band, I really don’t think that fits. The band has a pleasant, low key, indie rock vibe. They’ve apparently played the International Pop Overthrow Festival in Liverpool and have crafted a nice little EP titled simply WHAT, REALLY?
The EP opens with “Ophelia (Among the flowers)” which clocks in just under 3 minutes. And while it’s not a barn-burner by any means, it grooves fast enough. The melody is catchy and the vocals are nice and clean. Next is “Dandy Hobo” which is darker and sounds a bit like The Shins with a hint of Jason Falkner. It’s a good song
“Ninja Expert” has a goofy title but is probably my favorite song on the EP. This is the band’s best, most fun song. It reminded me of Canadian indie-rockers Tokyo Police Club with it’s angular guitar riff and shouty vocals. As good as the song is, it feels a bit restrained. I’ll wager that when playing “Ninja Expert” live, the band really lets it rip. And really, that’s the biggest issue I have with these songs, they feel like a band operating at 90%. Just a little extra oomph would have pushed these songs into fantastic instead of really good.
The last track “Clouds” is as good as everything else on the EP but is a bit too short and again feels like a restrained effort. As far as EP’s go from unknown bands, What, Really? have something really good on their hands. If this was mine, I’d be really proud of it. That said, for the full album the band really needs to step up with the energy (or hire a producer capable of capturing their energy better, or both). I think they should stop marketing themselves as power-pop and embrace the indie-rock sound that they cultivate. And honestly, if I were them, I’d buddy up with some Italian Film School kids and let them use their music in their independent film–because I could totally see these songs as the backdrop to some awesome black and white art house flick made by some newbie filmmaker.
The song’s production is pretty dated, but delightfully New Wave-ish enough to save itself from being totally unlistenable. Roddy Frame, the mad genius behind Aztec Camera, comes off just earnest enough: any less would be boring, any more would be embarrassing. I first thought I was hearing a really early Morrissey/The Smiths song, only because Frame’s voice has that beefy timber that’s similar to the Moz.
I was disappointed to find that HIGH LAND, HIGH RAIN, the band’s 1983 debut album, was a little hard to come by. But rejoice! This April will mark the 31th anniversary of the album’s release, and to celebrate Domino Records is putting out a remastered double-CD edition of the album. I got my copy in the cut-out bin of my local record shop, but I’m tempted to pick this one up. HIGH LAND, HIGH RAIN is a fantastic record top to bottom. The single “Oblivious” is probably the album’s most notable track, but I really dig “Walk Out To Winter.”
I woke up this morning to a freshly fallen winter wonderland myself, and this song was playing in my head. If you haven’t checked out Aztec Camera, don’t feel bad just get with it and seek out HIGH LAND, HIGH RAIN.
Valley lodge came to my attention last week via podcaster Dave Slusher. Prior to that, I’d never heard of the band but was quickly impressed with their song “Go.” I looked them up online, and it turns out Valley Lodge has a pretty impressive pedigree. The band formed in 2005 and features members from such diverse acts as Satanicide, Sense Field, Sons of Elvis, Cobra Verde, and Walk Mink. The Cobra Verde connection really piqued my interested because that’s a band that has ties to Guided By Voices, one of my all-time favorite bands. So how had they escaped my Sauron-like gaze for so long? Well Valley Lodge, like most power-poppers today, is more famous in Japan than they are here in the States.
I love a really catchy, stupidly simple song. For me that’s the essence of power-pop: taking something pretty basic and making it infectious. Valley Lodge has crafted one heck of an earworm with their song “Go.” It’s goofy but incredibly catchy and I’ve been unable to go a day without listening to it at least once this past week. Once I got over the initial sugar rush of “Go,” I decided to check out the rest of the band’s latest album. Would the rest of USE YOUR WEAPONS manage to live up to that first song? Being a “glass half empty” guy, I was certain the rest of the album would be downhill after such a stellar opening track.
Thankfully I was wrong, USE YOUR WEAPONS is a solid album. Less syrupy than you’d expect after hearing “Go,” USE YOUR WEAPONS pays tribute to British invasion-era pop but with a dash of snarky-grit. The band compares favorably to California rockers TSAR, who also inject a whole lotta fun into their hooky, sometimes-dark songs. Valley Lodge, like all great power-pop bands, owes a lot to Big Star whose influence can be felt throughout the record, especially on “Make Up Your Mind.”
Lead singer Dave Hill is a comedian as well as writer/blogger, so it’s unsurprising that Valley Lodge’s songs are funny, but don’t mistake the mistake of writing the band off as a joke—these songs seriously rock. Even though USE YOUR WEAPONS is fun, there’s a darkness peaking out from the corners on a few of the albums tracks, especially on “Pretty Thing” and “Waiting in the Rain.”
Not everything on USE YOUR WEAPONS is perfect; I didn’t care for the semi-grating bubblegum of “Gimmie Gimmie” which is a shame because it has some great guitar work. I also think that the band’s sound feels only partially formed, and that the songs have a disjointed quality, as though they were cobbled together from a couple of different bands rather than one. That said, I’m really glad I found this band and look forward to exploring their back catalogue. I’d say if you were intrigued by “Go” you should definitely check out the rest of USE YOUR WEAPONS.
A fun throwback, I’d definitely recommend Valley Lodge’s USE YOUR WEAPONS for fans of Big Star, The Raspberries, and Fountains of Wayne.
Now that I don’t have Spotify, I’ve been forced to return to my expansive CD collection. One of those shiny, shiny discs, was a copy of Dire Straits 1985 album BROTHERS IN ARMS. It’s the band’s most famous, best-selling albums. I hadn’t heard it all the way through in a while and when I recently re-listened to it, I was astounded that the first three songs were all singles. The album’s also really long, the songs are lengthy but none of them feel overly long. That’s something that’s kinda lost in this age of ADD-riddled post-MTV age.
Speaking of MTV, I’m still completely blown away by “Money For Nothing.” Talk about a song that wouldn’t work today, where to begin: I love that Sting is on this track. I love the sentiment, the commentary on music videos and the perception of being a musician. I love that guitar riff, man is that a million dollar riff! And the best part? That super-meta video with the primitive CGI. I feel so blessed to have had young parents that were into MTV during it’s initial hey-day. I remember seeing this video, not when it first came out mind you (I’m not THAT old), and being really wowed by the visuals.
Mark Knopfler is such an amazing talent, I think I prefer his solo stuff to Dire Straits, but BROTHERS IN ARMS is a damn fine album.
The postings have kinda fallen off here at Defending Axl Rose, and for that I’m sorry. I’ve been busy working a new job, tinkering with a novel I started writing in January, and writing concert previews for a Colorado fashion/culture webzine, 303 Magazine.
But fear not, despite a fuller-than-usual plate, I have been rocking out to new music. I was recently turned onto Valley Lodge, a delightfully crunchy power-pop outfit out of New York. Their latest album, USE YOUR WEAPONS, is in heavy rotation here at the D.A.R. compound. The first track “Go” is ridiculous and ridiculously good. Seriously, I defy you to hear this song and not smile…and tap your foot.
I plan on writing a full album review this weekend, but in the meantime, why not get the jump on all your friends and get familiar with Valley Lodge? This is serious power-pop for pop-loving people.
I shan’t lie, I’m a huge fan of Swedish heavy metal rockers Ghost (now called Ghost B.C. but whatever). I love their larger-than-life Satan worshiping antics and their sweeping Blue Oyster Cult-vibe. Most of their tunes have a dark heart, and while I dig that about them, I can’t help but love their earnest (dare I say, sweet?) cover of Roky Erickson’s “If You Have Ghosts.”
Stirring strings? Silky smooth vocals? Killer guitar? Check. Check. And check. This song kicks so much ass. And Dave Grohl on rhythm guitar is there to add a badass cherry on this hard rock sundae.
“If You Have Ghosts” appears on a recently released EP of the same title, like the band’s prior full length LP’s its is highly recommended.
Also, I’m super stoked because Ghost is embarking on a North American tour that will include a city near me! I can’t wait to see them.
One of my most popular posts is an article I wrote about singer Robin Zander’s mysterious country-ish solo album. That record, COUNTRYSIDE BLVD, is a solid effort from one of rock’s more interesting frontmen (Zander is the lead singer of Cheap Trick). I wouldn’t call it great, but it’s pleasant enough, and yet people will not stop contacting me about this record. So what’s so special about COUNTRYSIDE BLVD? Well, due to murky record label shenanigans, the album has never been properly released.
Dear DREAM POLICE: What is under that hat?
Well, that’s not true…the album has been released on a variety of digital music platforms (like Amazon’s music store) only to be yanked down time and again after being available for only a few hours. Thus, 99.99% of Zander’s fans have only heard the album in pieces or through bootleg copies. It was recently announced on Zander’s (amazingly cartoonish) website that a live album of this material is going to be released…soon. How strange is that? A live album coming out when the proper album is not? Clearly this is case is a textbook, quintessential, case of the darkside of the record industry/music biz if there was one.
I am literally speechless. SOURCE: RobinZanderband.com
I acquired a copy of the album (digitally, natch) through a hardcore Cheap Trick fan/podcaster who shall remain nameless. I don’t approve to illegal downloading, after all I’m the rube who buys CD’s and pays for Spotify (well, I used to at least, till my finances took a tumble when I relocated). That said, when something is not made available for the public to buy, I don’t have problem with file sharing. That said, if you download this album from me and it somehow sees the light of day, please buy it. Robin Zander needs all the money he can get to hide that receding hairline.
“If you were a pill, I’d take a handful at my will/And knock you back with something sweet and strong.”
Paul Westerberg perfectly captures the sleazy hopelessness of young, desperate love in “Valentine.” The song was recorded by The Replacements for their 1987 album PLEASED TO MEET ME, and pretty much the only V-Day song I’m going to be listening to today. The song’s opening lines, in which a star wished upon turns out to just be an airplane tells you everything you need to know about this song. I wouldn’t call Westerberg unsentimental, I’d just call him a realist. Love’s a drug and we’re all junkies.
These guys KNOW what love’s really all about.
Valentine’s Day is just like all the other holidays: a good idea twisted into an excuse for people to spend money they don’t have. Take time to think about all the love you’ve had and currently have, but don’t buy a fucking greeting card.
One the of great properties of music is its ability to serve as a sort of emotional shorthand. Songs about love or loss allow us to experience these feelings vicariously while also drawing upon our own pool of half-buried emotion. Songs can have personal connections to us, but what I’m talking about are the broader, surface-level connections that we all feel to some degree. Every time you hear Don Henley’s “The Boys of Summer” you don’t get a knot in your stomach thinking about a dark-haired girl I knew in 8th grade. But when we all hear The Beatles “Something” or Billy Joel’s “Just The Way You Are” we all feel an approximation of the same thing.
This ability to instantly invoke feeling makes music the perfect complement to film and television shows that want to underscore and heighten their down dramatic moments. When used effectively, the results are memorable and wonderful. That said, there are some songs that are used a little too frequently in films/shows, turning a wonderful thing into a cheat, a lazy-shorthand for actual emotion. Worse, there are other uses of songs in various pop culture where, even when not overused, become so iconic that the song ceases to have a life outside this one specific use. For me, these songs are ruined. Perhaps ruined is too strong a word, but whenever a song becomes unlistenable without conjuring up residual cultural baggage that’s what it feels like to me. Ruined.
Don’t drop that thing on your head…
Here are some notable songs “ruined” by pop culture:
1. “Stuck in the Middle With You” by Stealers Wheel. Most casual music fans are probably under the impression that this is a Bob Dylan song. “Stuck in the Middle With You” feels like a Dylan song because the song was conceived as a spoof of Dylan. The song was released in 1972 and by 1973 reached all the way to #6 on the Billboard Music Charts. Songwriters Gerry Rafferty and Joe Egan put out two more albums and then disbanded, with Rafferty going onto have moderate solo success including a hit with his 1978 song “Baker Street.” The song probably would have remained a curiosity/answer to a trivia question had director Quentin Tarantino not resurrected the song for his feature film debut Reservoir Dogs. The song took on a fresh, demonic connotation when Mr. Blonde, played by Michael Madsen, gleefully tortures a policeman while dancing to the track. Now 99.99% of people are unable to hear “Stuck in the Middle With You” without thinking about ears being lopped off.
2. “Gimmie Shelter” by The Rolling Stones. The first cut off the Stones 1969 classic LET IT BLEED, “Gimmie Shelter” is an epic tour de force. The song is notable for prominently featuring vocals from a non-Rolling Stone (singer Merry Clayton) and for tackling the Vietnam War, which was raging at the time. The song’s dark, seductive groove and “rape and murder” references make the song ideal for use in films with violent content. So not surprisingly, the the song has been used in countless cops ‘n robbers shows and films. I also think it’s impossible to make a film about the Vietnam War without using this and Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Fortunate Son.” But the person who really ruined this song was director Martin Scorsese who has used it in not one, but three films: Goodfellas, Casino, and The Departed. It’s a great song, but it has been done to death. For a song about the horrors of the Vietnam War, I sure do think of garlic-breathed mobsters when I hear it…
3. “In Your Eyes” by Peter Gabriel. Originally released in 1986, “In You Eyes” was the first song on the second side of Gabriel’s fifth solo album SO. Essentially a perfect time capsule of 1980’s pop, SO also famously featured the hits “Big Time” and “Sledgehammer.” At the time of the album’s release, “Sledgehammer” was the bigger hit due in part to a really cool stop-motion animated music video. But all that changed three years later when Cameron Crowe used the song in his teenage love story Say Anything… The song gained renewed attention and immortality when, near the film’s climax, John Cusack blasts the song from a boombox hoisted high over his head. I was but a babe when Say Anything… came out, so the nostalgia is a bit lost on me, but even I can’t hear Gabriel’s song without thinking of Cusack. The song’s been used over the years in similar context, but everybody is really just copying Crowe.
4. “All Along The Watchtower” by Bob Dylan but covered famously by Jimi Hendrix. Everybody agrees that Hendrix was a guitar god, and his cover of Dylan’s “All Along The Watchtower” is an amazing interpretation (seriously, have you heard Dylan’s version?) but much like “Gimmie Shelter” the song has been co-opted by filmmakers who use the song as a kind of shorthand for “doing drugs in ‘Nam.” The song’s use in Forest Gump is the gold standard of such use (that film is probably one of the worst offenders when it comes to using music as lazy shorthand). The track’s overuse has reached the point of cliché, I actually laughed when I saw Zack Synder’s Watchmen film where the song’s use bordered on parody.
5. “Bad to the Bone” by George Thorogood & The Destroyers. The title track off the George Thorogood’s 1982 album, “Bad to the Bone” was not a hit. But within a few short years “Bad to the Bone” became the band’s most recognizable hit. How you ask? Because the song has been used countless time to telegraph to the audience that a certain character is a badass. Most famously the song was used in conjunction with Arnold Schwarzenegger in T2: Judgment Day when the muscular robot first dons his iconic black motorcycle jacket. “Bad to the Bone” was a kinda cool tough-guy song that has now been watered-down into a novelty song, thanks in part to it’s uber-level of machismo. Today the song is now mostly used in comedies in contrast with a particularly un-tough character (i.e. a loveable loser).
6. “What I Am” by Edie Brickell & The New Bohemians. The impetus for this list was the recent use of Edie Brickell’s 1988 one-hit wonder “What I Am” on HBO’s Girls. This season on the show, an ill-advised cover of the song that makes its way onto YouTube and haunts a particular character. I hadn’t thought about/heard this song in ages, but the day after I saw the first episode of Girls third season, I started noticing the song was on the radio more than in previous years. A catchy chorus and twisty, semi-thought provoking lyrics are now rendered meaningless thanks to the series. This is now a song about defeat and the soul-crushing reality that none of our dreams are going to come true. Thanks Girls.
There are countless other examples of song ruined by pop culture, Queen’s epic “Bohemian Rhapsody” was forever stamped by Mike Meyers and Dana Carvey in Wayne’s World as was “Sweet Home Alabama” in every movie to every take place in the South (or feature Southern characters). I’m sure just how ruined these songs are depends on your film/TV watching habits. I’m curious to hear what songs you the reader feel have been used to death or ruined by pop culture. Speak up in the comments section.
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