Oasis-What's the Story Morning Glory?

Oasis-What’s the Story Morning Glory?

 

 

I really like Definitely Maybe, too, and went back and forth on which one to put here. The first two Oasis albums are a great 1-2 punch for Brit-Pop, and a couple of my favorite 90s albums.

In the mid-90s I was living in a small apartment in Pasadena, and I’d finally started making a little money. I decided that it was time to actually learn to play guitar, and so I went to Guitar Center and bought a Epiphone PR-5 cutaway from Korea, which I found to be bright and very playable. Then I headed to a small guitar shop, and hooked up with a teacher, who’d show me some basic blues riffs and scales, which I still use to warm up, and then I’d play a tape of a song that I wanted to play. He’d break it down for me and then write up the tabs, which I would then go home and practice.

I actually got fairly competent, and I could play from sheet music and follow along with other players.

It was the early days of the internet, and America Online had guitar chord forums, and from that I pulled Wonderwall. It’s a simple chord progression, capo on the second fret starting with an Em7, which sounds fancy until you finger the rest of the progression. I was playing it once in a guitar store, and a pretty girl came up and asked what it was, which was really nice. It meant that I was playing something that sounded like a song!

There are many things that I would like to say to you,
but I don’t know how,
except maybe
are you gonna be the one that saves me
and after all,
you’re my Wonderwall

Is something that I would have liked to have written, and the woman I might have written it to then just passed away last week. The video was visually interesting, too, shot in black and white (except for a colored guitar) with Liam singing in a dentist chair placed inside a warehouse and Noel holding a megaphone, singing the chorus in Liam’s ear.

But there are other songs that I really liked, too. Hello starts the album with phased/fuzzed power chords over a bed of acoustic guitars, She’s Electric (from a family full of eccentrics) shows the fighting Gallagher brothers had a sense of humor, and the epic power-ballad Champaign Supernova (where were you while we were getting high?), closes out the album with a touch on melancholy.

Actually, as I listen to the album playing now, melancholy seems to run through many of the songs, like Don’t Look Back in Anger or Cast No Shadow.

Back in the 90s, in spite of the dense sound filling my apartment, I felt like I could play every song on the album. I still feel that way now, making the whole thing relatable.

In  2014, a three disc reissue of the album was released, with remastered sounds, b-sides that I had collected back in the day, and some live performances. I picked it up on eMusic (in the early 00s eMu was a good place to find odds and ends. Not so much anymore) for the price of one disc, and it’s very good.

Social Distortion-Social Distortion

Social Distortion-Social Distortion

Social Distortion is back on the road, coming to town in a few weeks, and I’ll be there.

Social Distortion was a mainstay on Rodney on the Roq, the old KROQ Sunday night punk rock extravaganza, hosted by Los Angeles’s perennially peripheral Rock 'n Roll character, Rodney Bingenheimer, which was where my listening taste graduated to after years of Dr. Demento. Their second single, 1945, was in heavy rotation and appeared on Rodney’s second compilation album.

Then, in December of ’81, my sister talked me into driving her and her friends to Godzillas, a converted wreck of a bowling alley out in the San Fernando Valley. I wedged my girlfriend, my sister and three or four of her friends into my ’77 green Toyota Celica (not the most I ever got into that car-pre seat belt laws were an exciting time for teenage drivers. And the strangest thing was that everyone’s parents were okay with it), and drove the hour or so from Downey to the venue.

I’d guess that my sister wanted to see Salvation Army, the band that would become the Three O’Clock, which I didn’t care for then because my sister liked them, (but I did own all their vinyl-they were good!), and I liked 45 Grave. Social Distortion was a bit of an afterthought.

Godzillas was a mess of a venue, with several large rooms of teenagers, mostly punk, but valley kids, surfers and others. I stumbled into the room where Social Distortion started to play, and it was an amazing set-band leader Mike Ness blistered through songs like Playpen and Mommy’s Little Monster, and though they were totally hardcore songs, there were harmonies, melodies and pretty good guitar solos to go with the punk rock guitar crunch. The show ended when stage divers knocked down the equipment and Ness stormed off stage. Ness was always anti-stage divers, unlike some of the other bands on the scene.

After that, I saw several Social Distortion shows, and from ’81 to ’84  I’d go see Social Distortion, Agent Orange, X and Wall of Voodoo whenever I could. Mommy’s Little Monster (1983) was a great lp, filled with teenage angst and punk rock fury, and Social Distortion was the high point of the Another State of Mind (1984) film. And then they seemed to vanish.

After addiction and a stint in the County Jail, Ness cleaned up and found old friend and bandmate Dennis Danell and reformed Social Distortion with Prison Bound (1988). Not a bad record, but not like their first one. Like the Rolling Stones, Ness started wearing his blues and country leanings on his sleeve.

The Epic Records debut, Social Distortion, jumped out of the radio. Ball and Chain and Story of My Life are simple, three chord country feeling rockers, with producer Dave Jerden mixing acoustic guitars on the bottom and crunching Les Pauls arching over the noise. The flat out punk rock numbers, like Let it Be Me and She’s a Knock Out seem to ride in on a wave of P-90 glory, with Ness’s crude lead lines surfing over the top.

Since then, I’ve seen Social Distortion several times, including being in the club when Live at the Roxy was recorded (I’m also featured on Kiss’s Alive II). I’m about the same age as Ness, and Downey is Orange County adjacent, so we share many influences. In listening, it sounds like Ness was more of an outsider than I ever was-I really did want to belong, but his songs of growing up echo many of the feelings I had about getting older too.

Songwriters that I seem to relate to because we’re about the same age and seem to be going through some of the same issues include Mike Ness, Paul Westerberg and Matthew Sweet. Other people write songs that I can relate too also, but not as consistently.

Every Social Distortion album is solid, and it was hard to choose between Social Distortion and Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell.

 

Mike Ness

12/7/24

Not a review, but just a quick note-Social Distortion last Tuesday was fantastic! For over 40 years, Social Distortion delivers! 

The mosh pit was much slower then back in the day, but it was friendly like it was when I first started going to shows, and I stationed myself in the same spot I did back then, right at the edge, picking people up and throwing them back in. Of course, the people I was (trying) to pick up were much heavier, and I did have some trouble getting my leverage to throw them, but I liked the energy much better than some of the shows I attended in the mid-80s, where it seemed like the moshers just wanted to hurt people and not just fly around running into people. I guess when you move into your 50s and 60s, hurting people isn't a thing anymore.

Social Distortion's Stage Set

Not to argue with Ness, but he kept alluding to how Social Distortion has been around for 40 years, but that's not quite true. Ness has been, but the entire band has changed several times over the years, though the current line-up has been stable for the last dozen years.

The show was opened by the Defiant, a punk rock supergroup that very much sounded like vocalist's Dickey Barrett's previous group, the Mighty Mighty BossToneS, not a bad thing if you liked them, and I picked up their CD in the lobby, getting the signatures of several bandmembers, who were all chatting up the crowd. Dicky Barrett even slid into the pit during the Social D set, coming over and saying something in my ear that I didn't catch.

The show ended at 11:15, and I'd guess that that back at Godzilla's, Social Distortion was probably just starting their set at 11:15. Old folks got to work the next day.

 

Donovan-The Classics Live

 

Donovan-the Classics Live

What seems like 100 years ago, I had a buddy who was living with an artist on a farm in San Luis Obispo. If I recall, she was reasonably well known on the Central Coast, and though her name escapes me now, she collaborated on a few works with Wyland in the early '90s, among other things.

The girlfriend I had back then and I went up to visit him, which turned into a fight because she didn’t want to stay with them. But we did, being put up in one of her kid’s rooms, and when I woke up in the morning, she was painting in the living room with Donovan’s Classics Live playing loudly. There’s a lot of memories in all that, because it turned into a strange weekend for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was the artist’s much more casual attitude when talking about my sex life. (“I told M——- that you two would get here and f%$@, so there’s plenty of blankets on the bed.” It was true, even though we were fighting, but my Catholic upbringing would keep me from saying something like that).

I’m not an artist-I’m a writer (though if you’ve been reading, you may have your own thoughts), and spending time with her and some painters that were living in her barn was enlightening. I’d just read Brian Wilson’s now discredited autobiography where he was discussing how he thought generally in music, and that there were always melodies playing in his brain. I also remembered taking Spanish in high school, and Sr. Resor explaining that we needed to think in Spanish, and only one phrase ever came to me faster in Spanish than English, “Yo no sé,” (“I don’t know”).

I asked all the painters how they thought, did they think in pictures or words, and then discussed with them their thought process as they prepared to paint-it was fascinating. They generally thought in pictures, and as you might have guessed, I think in words. They didn't seem all that fascinated by it, but I did.

Back to Donovan. Classics Live is mellow, very very mellow to the point of floating away on a cloud. I’ve found a few reviews online, and the knowledgeable music scholars consider this to be a money grab, an artist well past his prime re-recording his classic tunes with the hope that the unsuspecting will pick up inferior versions of the songs the artist made famous on another label.

And it’s most likely true. The Wikipedia page for this album refers to it as Rising, and gives a complicated history for it's release that I wasn't really aware of until I read it. I did know it was a re-issue with a new title when I bought it, but not much else.

No matter. Donovan was a folk singer to begin with, so playing stripped down, acoustic versions of his classics doesn’t hurt the songs in the least. Donovan’s voice is in fine form, and the three new (at the time) songs blend in well, with “Young and Growing,” being one of the best on the album. Hurdy Gurdy Man, Wear Your Love Like Heaven and Sunshine Superman all benefit in this format.

I’ve played it often, pulling it out on Sunday mornings or times when I want some quiet music playing at a loud volume.

My only complaint is that my favorite Donovan song isn’t on here-no Mellow Yellow.

Our Lady of Fatima Russian Byzantine Catholic Church, San Francisco

 If you came up to me and said, “Hey, do you want to go see a one act play?” I’d immediately say, “Sure, what’s it about.”

If you then responded with the following:

The building by the Church

Okay, we go to the little building by a church. You knock on the heavy, wooden door, and a one eyed guy is going to answer. He’s tall, with a beard and wearing a black cassock, and he’ll let you in and send you down this short hallway into a 12’ by 20’ room, with a small stage on one end with part of a curtain. There’s a lot more building around you, all probably over a hundred years old, lot’s of marble and stone-I think it used to be convent, so you get some of that ‘old nun’ vibe, but you don’t go that way. There’ll be chairs around the outside wall of the room, and maybe a half dozen people with you. A lectern will be in the middle

The Hallway

facing the small stage. The walls will be painted with those flat perspective Russian-type folk paintings, and every surface will be brightly colored. There’s some stained glass windows, and some phrases written on the walls in some sort of gothic font, too.

The show starts when a guy in a robe comes out and starts reading at the lectern. He won’t acknowledge the crowd, he just goes. It’s in English, but he doesn’t pause at sentences or anything-he just keeps reading, facing away from you and you have to keep up. The one eyed guy comes out and swings around some incense, and occasionally answers the first guy.

Some singing’s going to be happening offstage at different points. Again, it’s in English but hard to understand. A third guy comes out and opens the curtain. He speaks English, too, it’s all in English, but there’s no punctuation. There’s some marching about the room from the actors, and more incense and operatic singing.

There’s lots of repetition of lines and phrases, and occasionally you’ll have to answer. After about an hour and a half, they’ll be serving some fancy bread and wine, and one of the guys is going to fork it into your mouth. You have to hold still, though, or you might lose an eye.

The whole thing goes about two hours, and they serve lunch after.

I’d be like, “Sure, I’m in. Lunch too? What’s it going to cost?”

And you’d go, “That’s the great part-you don’t have to pay anything, but you can leave a donation.”

That’s probably not the description that the congregation for Our Lady of Fatima Russian Byzantine Catholic Church would use, but that’s what it felt like.

I was alone in San Francisco on a Sunday morning, waiting for my daughter to wake up and summon me, and thought I’d go to Mass. San Francisco has more Catholic Churches than any place I’ve ever been, and a few were in walking distance of my motel. I picked a distance of about 1.5 to 2 miles, and had a few options. I’d been to St. Ignatius, the church affiliated with the University of San Francisco (which is beautiful), and wanted to try a different place. Google maps pointed out two other churches, and I picked Our Lady of Fatima-there was a coffee place on the way there.

I’ve been to several Roman Catholic masses in my life, including Mass deep in Baja California, Hiroshima, and the Vatican. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve found churches to be peaceful, and the Mass that I attended twice weekly in Catholic school is burned in so deeply that I can listen to the Roman Catholic Mass in another language and pretty much still know where its at-a fact that I found especially fascinating while listening to Mass in Japanese. Though there are subtle differences from church to church and diocese to diocese (the accent in the hymn Ave Maria come to mind-is it Áve or Avé?), Roman Catholic Masses are all pretty much the same.

Though Our Lady of Fatima is part of the San Francisco Arch-Diocese, it is a Russian Byzantine Mass, and that’s much different. It’s longer, to start with, and the changes of Vatican II, back in the 60s, don’t seem to apply, beyond the Mass wasn’t in Latin. Most of the Mass was done facing the alter, and there was little participation from those in attendance. There was a reading and a Homily, in which the priest explained a few of the differences, but everything else seemed out of order to me.

It should be noted that Russian Byzantine has nothing to do with the Russian government, and was not pro-Russia in any way. It is part of the Eastern Orthodox Churches, and though it falls under Pope Francis, the head of the Church (the Ordinary) Joseph Werth is based in Novosibirsk, Siberia. There are very few Russian Byzantine parishes in the US (seven from what I can gather). It’s actually supposed to be very similar to Russian Orthodox, except that Russian Byzantine fall under the direction of the Pope, while Russian Orthodox does not.

Of the other half dozen people who attended with me, one appeared to be a regular attendee, two had been congregates from years past, one lived nearby and was just trying something different and the other two were tourists like me. The lunch after word was okay, a crock pot hearty soup, some bread and a green salad, which was served in what was most likely the nun’s dining hall, and I spoke some to the lady who lived nearby but had never been and to the very friendly deacon (Deacon Bruce?), who answered my questions, of which I had many.

I’d talk about “Faith Journey” or “Spiritual Growth” at this point, but that really wasn’t what this was. I wanted to see something different, something that I wouldn’t see elsewhere that was positive, and the Mass at Our Lady of Fatima was that.

Revolver-the Beatles

 

Revolver-The Beatles

A record store opened up in Bell across from Veteran’s Park on Gage sometime in the early 70s, and they had something that I’d never seen before-a used record section. I was probably about 10, and the idea that someone would sell their records was unheard of to me. Who would buy a record and then sell it? After saving up your allowance, or working some deal with your parents, much careful consideration, and then the act of picking up a record and taking it to the hip record counter person and facing their knowing look of either approval or disdain, who would then take the record home, play it and decide it wasn’t for them and take it back?

I didn’t know that person.

I looked through the bins with a bunch of records that I had never heard of and would never buy until I came across a copy of the Beatles’ Revolver. 10 year old me knew two of the songs, Yellow Submarine and Eleanor Rigby. I was still pretty early in my musical experience, and to that point, I thought Yellow Submarine was only on the Yellow Submarine movie soundtrack. I didn’t know the other songs, but for whatever reason, I paid the person, a young, bra-less vaguely dirty hippy looking woman at the counter, and went home to put the record on my parents’ Zenith console stereo (which I still have in the garage), and was amazed by George Harrison’s count off to Taxman. It’s a count that I still use in my head when I dive into a cold pool.

The transition from Taxman to Eleanor Rigby is jarring, a tribute to George Martin’s string arrangement and the stylistic variety of Beatles music. Other songs still pop into my subconscious when I don’t expect it, like the line from She Said She Said-“I know what it’s like to be dead/I know what it is to be sad/and it making me feel like I’ve never been born.”

“Turn off your mind relax and float down stream,” from Tomorrow Never Knows accompanies me when I’m suffering from bouts of insomnia. McCartney’s pop songs are good, but Lennon’s drug influenced songs are the ones that stick. A Jam Cover of And Your Bird Can Sing brought the original back into my consciousness in the 90’s, when I purchased the first CD version.

Fancy terms like “Bb Mixolydian” are thrown around in scholarly reviews, but the important thing is that this is still a pop record. The longest song on the album, I’m Only Sleeping, clocks in at 3:02, and all 14 songs take only 35 minutes. As a reference, the Ramones classic third album, Rocket to Russia also has 14 songs and takes 31:46, making Revolver a shade over three minutes longer. The Beatles brought a variety of influences to the record, but by keeping it short and the songs being built around familiar structures, the record remains accessible. The depth of the music has kept it close to the top of my record rotation for over 50 years, and as I play it this afternoon (2009 remaster, which sounds a zillion times better than my original, 90's version), it still surprises. 

For the very serious Beatles fans, here's where you can get the super deluxe 2022 version.

Yard Sale/Joe Cardella

Benji and the Cone

Since the pandemic, my dog Benji and I walk the mile and a half to the beach every Saturday, and often stop at yard sales on the way. He is my yard sale consultant, and so far has picked up tiki mugs from Harvey’s of Lake Tahoe, a Craftsman Scroll Saw, and assorted books among other things. Today he’s wearing the cone due to a procedure on his ear yesterday, and I thought it best to stay away from the sand that he likes to roll around in. Instead of the Starbucks at the end of Seaward that we normally frequent on a Saturday morning, we headed to Simones by the hospital.

I’ve written about Simones (though this is the new one) before, and should update that post. They’re still good.

We walked the long way back home to try to get close to the 6 miles we normally do on a Saturday morning, and happened by a yard sale in a part of Midtown that we don’t normally walk through.

There were interesting things, like some vintage tools and bottles that I thought looked cool but had no use for, as well as some art work that again, looked interesting, but I don’t really have a place for. I did find some ceramic insulators for $2 a piece, to go with my collection that I use as yard decorations. I picked out two.

There was a couple and an older man running the yard sale. She was trying to get a Margaritaville Blender to work and seemed disappointed that all it did was crush ice. The older man said the parrots had left the trees, and her husband (I think) was talking to me about various items they had for sale.

An Original

I saw this mixed media painting, and he said that I could have it, that he didn’t think anyone else would want it. I wasn’t sure that I wanted it either, but it will fit in with the tiki bar I someday wish to have, so I accepted.

He said that the artist, Joe, lived behind his house on the next street, and that Joe had made it on an idle afternoon in Florida, when his friends were off doing something that he didn’t want to do. Joe had passed a few years before, throat cancer the guy said, and they had become friends over the fence, especially after his wife would make soup that Joe could eat. I asked if the artist’s name was on it, and he said yes pointing to where it was on the front of the work, J. Cardella.

Home now, I looked up Joe Cardella (follow the link to learn what I learned) not expecting to find anything, and after the brief internet search, I’m now quite proud of the piece that I’ve acquired. It’ll still go in the tiki bar that I don’t have, but now I have a story to go with it. Apparently well known in the Ventura and national art scene, I now have an original, though minor, museum worthy piece.

The Who A Quick One (Happy Jack)/Sell Out

I knew Magic Bus and My Generation, but when I hit High School, the kids were listening to Baba O’Reilly from Who’s Next, and Tommy (the movie soundtrack, not the original). By Numbers was out, but I didn’t really take to it.

 

 

Then came Who Are You at the start of my sophomore year. Licorice Pizza in Downey had a pretty good import section, and I bought the longer import version, which didn’t sensor the “Who the fuck are you?” line.

I alluded in another “12” post about the Wherehouse affiliate store, Big Ben and the Lakewood branch. In the cut-out bins, I came across this two record set, and in my mind, the two are very much linked together. It must have been a good price, and I knew I Can See For Miles so I plunked down the cash and found that I really enjoyed the early Who. Also in the bins was another two discer, Magic Bus/My Generation, which I’m surprised I didn’t buy as well, but I think I bought the imported The Story of the Who instead.

Tommy was long and convoluted, not really making any sense to me-deaf, dumb and blind kid? Really? And though I liked Elton John’s Pinball Wizard, and thought it was strange to see Ann Margret rolling around in beans, the Tommy Movie or the original Who version didn’t make much sense to me. I could follow Quadrophenia better, but not much better.

But the nine or so minutes of A Quick One (While He’s Away) made sense. Moon’s drumming drives home the story of the girl who’s been waiting for her man, get’s tired of waiting and takes up with Ivor the Engine Driver, then her man comes back, forgives the transgression, and everything’s good once more. The tempos and styles change quickly, and to me it represents everything that is the Who. I love the power chording of Townshed’s guitar and the bass runs from Entwhistle. The harmonies are far from perfect, which gives the song the feeling that anyone could shout along.

Cobwebs and Strange, Moon’s contribution, seems to always creep into my head when I need an instrumental, and other songs, like So Sad About Us and Boris the Spider were immediate favorites.
From Sell Out, of course I Can See For Miles is a great Who song, but Tattoo, I Can’t Reach You, and Silas Stingy all contain classic early Who styling. Unlike the longer songs of later albums, these songs are short and to the point.

Keith Moon died while I was in high school, and Who Are You became a huge hit. I liked Trick of the Light and the title track, but it was the short songs of the early years (A Quick One is several short songs crammed together), that I always preferred. I must own four or five versions of A Quick One (While He’s Away)-the Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus or the original studio version are my favorites. Early Who-that’s where the power is!

Pagani Design Diver

 Pagani Design

Safe from China

My year of belonging to Watch Gang brought me an appreciation of Chinese made watches. I knew watches were made in China-many Fossil Watches are made there, and I have a few of those, and more than a few of the watches I got through Watch Gang were made in China. Though many of them weren’t particularly my style, as I wrote in my reviews, they all seemed to keep time okay.

I buy things from AliExpress pretty often-it’s great for computer stuff-usb drives, external disk drives, cords, etc., and I’ve picked up a few watches off the site as well. My hard ceiling for watches from AliExpress is $100. After that, I might as well buy a name brand. AliExpress allegedly has some name brand watches, but around the internet it states that they’re fakes.

I decided that I wanted a new skin-diver type watch, and that I was actually going to use it as a beater-a watch to wear to the beach, while doing yard work, fixing things around the house and other mundane tasks, so I thought a cheap Chinese watch from Aliexpress would fit the bill. I also wanted it to be mechanical-I hate picking up a watch with a dead battery. And I wanted a watch that had a face of about 39-40mm, (though I’d go up to 42mm), my preferred watch face size.

After the Omega/Swatch was released a while back, several watch reviewers popped up on Youtube saying that the Omega/Swatch wasn’t really worth it, and if you wanted a good Omega Speedmaster homage, to buy the Pagani Design from Aliexpress. The cost was about $115 compared to Swatch’s $270 (if you can find one), and the specs were much closer to an actual Omega.

I think that misses the point. If I’m buying an Omega/Swatch, I’m buying it because it’s an Omega/Swatch. A Timex quartz will tell time just as well. I want the label-oh and if you'd like to buy me an Omega Speedmaster or the Omega/Swatch, I'll take it.

Unwrapped

Which brings me back to Pagani Design. Several of their watches had positive reviews, and they had a skin-diver that met my requirements. It cost $53.95 in one of the frequent AliExpress sales (it's $62.47 as I write this), and I wanted a nato band for it, which added another $3.95.

Original band

It arrived in a reasonable amount of time, packed inside an ordinary box covering another ordinary box. I realized fairly quickly that the watch was hefty. Things that I liked right away-the black and orange color scheme gives the watch a serious look, but with a little pop. It has a screw down crown and a large date window. There’s an exhibition back, and a scratch resistant sapphire crystal. It’s also powered by a Seiko NH35 movement.

Things that I don’t like-I didn’t care for the band, so I knew that I was going to change that. The lume isn’t very good, fading out fairly quickly. It seems to be about 30 seconds fast every 24 hours (I should mention that a watch running fast is probably a good thing for me-I’m more likely to show up on time). At 42mm, it's a little bigger than I wanted.


Unexpected likes-the colors pop more than I thought they would. There are no sharp edges. I’ve gone swimming with it several times, and it’s water resistant. I don't know that I'd actually do any diving with it, but it is rated to 100m, certainly enough for me to reach the bottom of a swimming pool.

Black and Orange nato band

Sapphire Crystal

As you all know, I’ve got several watches, and I keep putting this one back on. It’s going to be my watch of the Summer, and certainly worth the $60 I put into it.

I’ve three other AliExpress watches, and I’ll get to all of them soon.

Exhibition Back

The Rolling Stones-Some Girls

 The Rolling Stones Some Girls

 

I remember bringing Made in the Shade to an 8th grade dance because strangely my Catholic School classmates would only dance to ballads (probably because holding each other drew less attention than ‘shaking your groove thing’), and put on Angie, which was loudly greeted by groans and I took it off right away. I personally didn’t play Made in the Shade that much-I think I bought it because I wanted to
seem more grown up, but found the songs hard to sing along to.

When I started high school, the Rolling Stones were still a big deal with the stoner crowd that I didn’t really hang out with. Black and Blue had just been released, and I wanted to like it, but it didn’t work for me, and I wasn’t going to spend my savings on it.

When Miss You was released I wasn’t as dead set against disco as I would be a few years later-chicks in tight fitting disco clothes will change the mind of a teen-age boy, and somewhere I have the 12” extended version on pink vinyl. At this point, I’m wondering if it’s the same character on both sides-Jagger wandering Central Park on a Friday night, turning down the buddy who wants to take him to meet some ‘Puerto Rican girls’ because he ‘Miss(es) You,’ thumping disco beat coming from nearby clubs, and then flying out to LA, driving through Bakersfield Sunday morning and looking for ‘the girl with far-away eyes’ from NY. Whether that’s true or not, I did play the b-side more.

I bought Some Girls with the original cover filled with women, only some of whom I recognized, and played it often. I liked the way the guitars blended together, with no real discernible lead guitar, and that most of the songs were short. The title track, with what the ‘Black Girls’ want to do, was appropriately taboo for a 16 year old, and Richards’ vocal Before they Make Me Run made me feel better about my own limited vocal range. I was moving into my Punk Rock phase, but the Rolling Stones were still a common touchstone in an American high school. Shortly after, I was rifling the extensive cut-out bins Big Ben’s in Lakewood, where Metamorphisis would regularly turn up, and found Rolled Gold, a cash

grab compilation from Decca focused on the early work of the Stones, and two other compilations (one with a red cover and one with a blue cover) and discovered that I really liked early 60's era Stones, things like Paint it Black, Under My Thumb, and Get Off My Cloud, which led me to buy my second favorite Stones album, Aftermath (US Version-I didn't know there was a different UK version), which didn’t really win me many friends when the stoners at school were listening to Black and Blue or It’s Only Rock and Roll.

When the 2011 Deluxe reissue was released, I bought it curious to hear the bonus tracks from the time. I knew that the best of the outtakes were used for the Tattoo You lp, so I didn’t have high hopes, but No Spare Parts jumped out of the speakers. Another first person narrative like Miss You and Far Away Eyes, it stuck with me immediately. Jagger redid the vocals, and the song is better for it-compare with the original here. His voice is older and works better with the character, and the narrative is leaner, seemingly about an older man driving through the southwest to visit (and care for) his much younger woman. Interestingly, the other outtake high point, So Young, also seems to be older man/younger woman, but here Jagger sounds like the creepy old guy hitting on a teenager at a French arcade. A few of the other tracks are worth a listen as well.

Johnny Cash-American Recordings

 

 

Johnny Cash American Recordings

I’ve always known who Johnny Cash was. He’s Johnny Cash, a mythical figure who’s deep voice and large presence just seemed to dwell in my consciousness. I don’t know of a time when Folsom Prison Blues didn’t exist. I know that I was alive on the release of A Boy Named Sue, but it seems like it was always there. I’d watch Johnny when he showed up on the Mike Douglas Show, which came on after school and would have a variety of musical guests.

From late ’75 to early ’76 I listened to country music station KLAC, and recall two hits of that time, Johnny Cash’s One Piece at a Time and Tom T. Hall’s Faster Horses.

In the 80s, I thought of Johnny as a kind of dinosaur that continued to roam the earth, a larger than life figure that called up a time long past. While I was on the Otter (KOTR) in SLO, my radio co-host and I pulled the new U2 Album, Zooropa and played the Wanderer on a lark. Playing it now, I stand by my original opinion-why? It’s a good vocal performance for Cash, but the synthesized backing track seems gimmicky, and I wonder if the song would have been improved with the synth mixed down and an acoustic guitar mixed up.

A few years later, on a ski trip in Mammoth with a girlfriend and her family, her step-dad pulled out American Recordings, and I listened to Delia’s Gone. I was floored.

For the next few days, I asked to hear that cassette every evening, and bought American Recordings when I got home. This old man (just a touch older than I am now) was singing these amazing songs, just him and his old Martin acoustic. The music was so full, I don’t think I realized that there were no backing musicians. (Like a Bird on a Wire is playing right now, filling the space here in my backyard). A credit to producer Rick Rubin, who somehow managed to capture the fullness of the rooms (Johnny’s cabin and Rubin’s living room) in the recordings.

House of Blues, Sunset Strip

There were a couple of live tracks, Tennessee Stud and The Man Who Couldn’t Cry, played for an adoring crowd at Johnny Depp’s Viper Room, and I’d got to see Johnny at the House of Blues on his birthday in 1996. Johnny commanded the stage in a way that I’ve only seen a few performers do. He started the way you’d imagine-“Hello, my name is Johnny Cash,” and went right into I Walk the Line. June came out and sang a few songs, and it looked like Grandma and Grandpa climbed onstage. June belted songs from the bottom of her feet-it was quite a sight. We were also treated to Carlene Carter and Rosanne Cash, and Johnny looked happy and proud. The encore saw Tom Petty, Mike Campbell and Howie Epstein come out for Rusty Cage. By the end, I was convinced that Johnny could have come out and sang the phone book and it would have been awesome.

All volumes of American Recordings are excellent, and Johnny’s version of Hurt, especially with the video, is frightening, showing the frailty of a man near death, and alarming in that wife June is shown gazing at him, and would precede him to the Promised Land. I almost put his VH1 Storytellers album with Willie Nelson on this list as well. I enjoy the 60s era Columbia records, too, but Rick Rubin really seemed to know how to get the best out of Johnny Cash, and as I get older, I’m glad that Johnny Cash did excellent work in his 60s.

Cheap Trick-In Color

 In 1977, I was able to talk my Dad into taking me to see Led Zeppelin at the Fabulous Forum, and then my sister and I were able to talk both my parents to taking us to see Kiss. Somewhere in my Mom’s garage, the “I Was There” button remains, as they were recording the concerts for the Alive II album.

I really liked the opening act, too. There were two total rocker dudes,
the singer/rhythm guitarist and the bassist, and also some nerdy guy with a weird hat and a bunch of guitars playing lead and a balding guy who looked like he should be working at a bank playing drums. In a building full of crazed Kiss fans, the opener, a band called Cheap Trick, held their own.

They were touring behind their second album, In Color, which I bought a few weeks after the show. Something about albums that you don’t get from downloads-the covers were often extremely interesting. In Color had Robin Zander and Tom Peterson (the rockers) sitting astride choppers in color on the front, and Rick Neilson and Bun E. Carlos on mopeds in black and white on the back. Several of the songs from the concert (Rick Neilson standing on a tiny riser playing the opening lick of Clock Strikes Ten at the front of the stage still burns in my memory), were on the album, including one that I thought should be a huge hit and I played if for everyone who’d listen-the studio version of I Want You to Want Me.

I still like the studio version better than what became the hit, the live version from Budokan. I thought the crowd was unnecessary and took away from the sonic textures of the album version. Tom Werman’s production was clean and bright, with guitars and vocals loud in the mix. I Want You to Want Me is a great song, three minutes of pop perfection on an album filled with great pop rock songs.

The opening track, Hello There, I remembered from the concert and still opens their live sets-I now see Cheap Trick regularly on 45 year intervals, having last saw them at the Ventura County Fair two years ago. (Next time, 2067). It’s starts with a tightly strummed power chord, and then a drum cuts through followed by Zander’s “Hello there ladies and gentlemen/are you ready to rock?”

Rick Nielson, the band’s songwriter and lead guitarist, crafts solid three minute guitar heavy pop, and though there are some dark moments (I want to live on a mountain/way down yonder in Australia/it’s either that or suicide/it’s such a strain on you), the gloss on the music might keep you from noticing.

Heaven Tonight, Live at Budakon (I had the original Japanese import) and Dream Police were all good, too. When the original bass player left, the quality dropped a bit, but The Summer Looks Good on You from a couple of year ago is a great track.

I also have and recommend the Steve Albini sessions of In Color, where the band went into the studio with the Nirvana producer in 1997 and re-recorded In Color in a more stripped down version.

Matthew Sweet-Girlfriend

 

In 1992 I quit my LAUSD teaching job in a huff, broke up with my girlfriend and moved in with a buddy in San Luis Obispo. I was 29, and going through an ‘angry young man’ stage of moderate self-sabotage, the chrysalis before my emergence to what I am now, 30-odd years later.

In the year I lived in SLO, I worked several odd jobs, juggled girls, and was the fill in guy at KOTR, a free form FM station where Matthew Sweet’s Girlfriend was in heavy rotation. I think I was able to talk the station managers, Drew and Clam Chowder into scoring me a copy, which I played non-stop at home. It seemed to catch my mood perfectly. Guitars both jangly and jagged provided by Robert Quine, Richard Lloyd and Sweet himself, Sweet’s self-harmonizing, Lloyd Cole’s solid bass lines and Fred Maher’s inventive drumming and bright production all served what Sweet called his ‘break-up’ album, and though Sweet would have solid songs on all of his following albums, nothing matched the quality and variety of Girlfriend

The title track has everything, an acoustic guitar hard strumming, a crunching electric rhythm guitar with a lead guitar howling over both, drums and maracas playing, and then the instruments drop out and Sweet’s voice comes in with the opening line of:

I wanna love somebody/ I hear you need somebody to love.

It’s exactly what I was thinking, and exactly the way I wanted to say it.

Other tracks, like the opener Divine Intervention could have been singing right to me-“I don’t know where I’m gonna live/Don’t know if I’ll find a place,” summed up my SLO experience perfectly. The music behind the lyric, though, that was the clincher, an overdriven electric chugging through power chords in a medium tempo, an acoustic guitar matching it, with lots of sonic goodies underneath and Richard Lloyd’s guitar squealing over the top. The false fade of melodic noise also adds to this track. Some God issues, which I was also having, floated through this song and others (Evangeline, Holy War) on the album as well.

The Legacy edition includes the Goodfriends bonus disc, with two more versions (one with piano that's really good) of the title track, as well as demos and live versions of other tracks, which is almost as good, showing that even stripped down the songs hold up.

Sweet’s about my age, and, as is apparent on his “Under the Covers” series with Susana Hoffs, must have the same record collection I did. You can hear his influences-Neil Young’s lead guitar and Beatles-like harmony especially, and though it is definitely a band album, there’s a lot of things sonically happening in the mix. Songs starting as if the guys had been playing something else first and false fades are common, as well as the sound of guitars plugging in and odd percussion elements. The album rewards repeated listening with aural surprises and 30 years later Girlfriend is still my favorite.

And Tuesday Weld is beautiful.

Have I written about Matthew Sweet before? Yes I have, thanks for asking-check right here

Have I written about K-Otter before? Yep, done that too! Check here and here

Locals Only by the Surf Punks

 

   The Surf Punks’ Locals Only might well be the guiltiest of guilty pleasures on this list. It’s not deep or profound, the musicianship is basic, and the songs are simplistic and filled with junior high locker room humor.

    But in my JuCo days I thought it was hysterically funny and I played it all the time. Formed by producer/drummer/singer Dennis Dragon (The Captain of Captain and Tennille’s younger brother) and Drew Steele in Malibu, the surfers/musicians seemed to be hosting the beach party that I wanted to get into. Their first album, My Beach, had a couple of good songs and lots of pieces of other songs, but it was their second one, Locals Only, where it all seemed to come together. Unlike the first album, there was an actual band for the second album, and though most of the songs were written by Dragon/Steele, stand out contributions also came from Mark “the Shark” Miller’s sliding bar chord classic Shark Attack, and Scott “the Valley” Goddard’s I’m a Valley (he wrote Manny Moe and Jack with the Dickies as well as Cowpunk). The musicianship was all pretty basic, but there were a lot of audio surprises mixed into the songs, making the sound of the album far more interesting.

    The live shows were where the Surf Punks stood out. They weren’t true punks like the rest of the LA scene. These were not pasty white guys screaming about how their parents didn’t love them enough and how tough their life was, wearing torn black clothes and safety pins. The Surf Punks were a little bit older, in surf trunks, day-glo tank tops and water polo caps, and instead of angst, they were singing songs showing the hedonistic pleasure of their beach lives. In the title track, their verses of trips to “Diego” ("those boys threw rocks at me!") and Ventura ("they not think we funny!"), end with the party that I wanted to be at: Now we have beach parties, naked girls will do the swim. I knew their naked girls would be big bosomed blonde beach babes and not the frightening looking goth chicks that were on the LA punk rock scene (Susana Hoffs and Jane Weidlin notwithstanding).

    I saw the Surf Punks twice, once in Hollywood and once in “the Valley” and both times they delivered. Drew rode in on his skate board guitar, Jerry Weber walked all over the stage with his keyboard around his neck, Andy the lifeguard came out of his tower-yes, there was a lifeguard tower on stage-to peel off some lead licks, bikini clad chicks coming out to dance to “Big Top” (when are those things gonna pop?) Mark the Shark wearing his fin, Scott the Valley singing his songs, and Dennis keeping a no-nonsense 4/4 beat. It appealed to me and my water polo playing buddys.

    Locals Only catches the wave of the Surf Punks party, and now, over 40 years later when I can go to Malibu anytime, I still want to find where the Spoiled Brats from Malibu hang out.

12 Favorite Albums/iMac Jukebox

What seems like a hundred years ago, I was visiting my in-laws, and I noticed that they had a fancy digital music storage system. They had stacks of cd's, all piled around a massive hard drive. I don't remember what brand it was, but I do remember looking it up and seeing it was pretty expensive.

Years after that, I was updating my home computer, and had an idea-why not store all of my cd's on a computer dedicated to only music. I was about to transfer my data from my old iMac to my new iMac, but the old one was still in reasonably good shape. I figured that if I took everything but iTunes off of it, and kept only iTunes and an external hard drive, it would be pretty much the same thing as my in-laws had, and with a good set of computer speakers, it would work for the living room. It wasn't set up to rattle the walls, but I don't listen to music that way much in the house-the car is a different story-so I didn't need that kind of volume.

So I set it up, and added a few features. The screen saver is set to show pictures of the family, so if the iMac isn't playing music, it's acting like a giant picture frame. Originally, I used an iMac G4 (which is still in the garage doing the same thing) and then switched to an iMac G5 from 2006 that I bought used in 2012 for around $100. I started with just uploading selected songs from the thousand or so cd's that I had, but when I was working on my Master's degree, I realized that it easier to just load the entire cd and then sort out what I wanted later. I would take a stack of cds and upload them whenever I needed to look up from whatever project I was working on.

What I didn't realize initially was that the Mac download was set to 192kbps instead of 320kbps, a sound quality loss that is noticeable with careful listening. I adjusted that about six years ago, and now generally only download things that are at that bit rate. At the end of the pandemic I decided to start taking selected cd's that I had loaded previously and reloading them at a higher bit rate, and it was going pretty well until my external hard drive crashed. The hard drive was old and had been making funny noises-it was the kind with the spinning disk-and then one day it just went belly-up. 

I took the hard drive all over town to see if someone could salvage the files. Many songs I'd picked up off the internet from websites that were only up for a while (Willard's Wormholes was a particular favorite, and I was never quite sure what surprises the WFMU blog would have), and weren't available anymore. But the hard drive truly was trashed.

I had backed up about 3/4s of what I had onto a newer hard drive, and I've been slowly hunting down other things. I think I'm still 4,000 songs short, but it's mostly obscure stuff that I hadn't really listened to, so I don't really know what's missing.

I'm also back to the project that I had originally started, upping the sound quality on the files, and taking a close listen to what I have. I can also see how often I've played something. I've decided to take another look at my favorites-which cd's I'd take with me if I was stuck on an island with an old Walkman, (Side note-I've been experimenting with upgrading a couple of old click wheel iPods-more on that later).

On the right I have a list that I made when I started this blog, and a few I'd still take with me. Girlfriend, Ragged Glory, Rain Dogs, Revolver and American Recordings all still stand the test of time. But I'm not so sure about The Supreme Genius of King Khan & the Shrines, Potatoes, and (gasp) Sinatra's Swingin' Sessions and More.

In my playing history, I'm more likely to pull out Cheap Trick's In Color, Donovan's The Classics Live, The Rolling Stones' Aftermath or Some Girls, or the Who's Sell Out. For reasons somewhat unclear to me, the Surf Punks' Locals Only had crept back into my rotation. I also have a soft spot for What's the Story, Morning Glory? and Social Distortion.

You probably noticed that nothing I've listed has been recorded in this century. I still listen to music, and things catch my ear that I enjoy. Wet Leg's Chaise Lounge and Wet Dream (I had to look up "Buffalo 66"), I find to be very sexy, but the album didn't really move me. I'll watch every video Youtube spits at me of Garfunkel and Oates, but I can't imagine just listening to them. Both Lil Nas X's Old Town Road and Cardi B's WAP are in rotation in my car, but I haven't picked up an album by either of them. The other day I was watching something and Battez Vous by the French artist Brigitte was playing and I downloaded it. I still buy new music when it's released by acts like the Red Hot Chili Peppers, X, The Rev. Horton Heat, Brian Setzer, Andy Prieboy and Southern Culture on the Skids, (again, all acts from the 80s and 90s) and I'm a big fan of new music compilations from Raiders of the Lost Hook and Ice Cream Man Power Pop and More! I also enjoy Little Steven's Underground Garage when I have access to Sirius XM.

I think I kept pretty up-to-date on music until my mid-thirties. Then I got married, had kids and didn't really have the time anymore. KROQ was my connection for new music, but it's hard to get here in Ventura. I'm not young anymore, but I still like a catchy, three minute song. I just don't relate to songs about girls and school and parties and such unless they remind me of a time when I did relate to girls and school and parties and such. Now it's women, work and retirement-not very rock and roll.

Over the next few weeks, I'm going to try to thoughtfully write about my favorite albums. So again, here they are, in alphabetical order by artist:

1. The Beatles-Revolver
   
2. Johnny Cash-American Recordings
3. Cheap Trick-In Color
   
4. Donovan-Classics Live 
5. Oasis-What's the Story, Morning Glory?
   
6. The Rolling Stones-Some Girls
7. Social Distortion-Social Distortion 
   
8. Surf Punks-Locals Only
   
9. Matthew Sweet-Girlfriend
10. Tom Waits-Rain Dogs
11. The Who-A Quick One/Sell Out
    
12. Neil Young-Ragged Glory  

This is going to be writing practice for me, and I don't want to get bogged down on any one entry, so I'm going to keep my thoughts at no more than 500 (or so) words.

Jury Duty post Covid/Beltex Watch/Lucky Watch Repair

It's been years since I've had Jury Duty, and some things have changed. The most important thing for me is that there was a small coffee bar that served pretty good coffee when I was here before, and refills were a dollar. It seems to be gone, though the space here remains.

They do brew up Peets Coffee, which I'm okay with, but in the main cafeteria area.

Also, instead of filling the Jury room and having us stay in or around the courthouse all day, they bring in a morning group and an afternoon group.

I picked the morning of July 1st, figuring that no one would start anything before a three day weekend.

So I'm in the cafe, stalling on doing real work.

Beltex Watch

I've seen this type of watch before, and when it showed up on the Goodwill Auction site, I thought I'd make a bid. The listing said it was running, though untested, which I thought was a good sign.

 

It's a little beat up, but when I see them, they usually go for around $400, so I figured out what I was willing to pay, and made a bid.

 

It wasn't running when I got it, and they'd taken the back off and didn't put it back on. I was able to get the date hand to work, but it didn't wind and there's no ticking. I'm pretty happy with my watch guy here in town, Lucky Watch Repair, and I took it to him. 

 

A quick note about Lucky Watch. An Asian man with a thick accent, his shop is pretty beat up looking behind the Baskin Robbins on Main Street. But his prices seem fair, and he does good work. I've had him replace the movement of a Seiko UCLA Alumni Association watch that my Mom had bought me, service my Harlem Globetrotter watch, replace the batteries on my Zodiacs and Shinolas, get my cheap (though supposedly limited edition) Goofy and Donald Duck watches running, and repair my 20 year old Seiko Automatic Dive watch.  

But he looked at the Beltex and said, "I can't get parts."

I was counting on him, so that wasn't good.

So, now I need to shop online and send it to someone, and hope that I can get it repaired for a price that is worth my while.

I'll let you all know how it goes.