Devshirme

I was listening to the local oldies station today and Donna Summer’s Dim All The Lights came on, with its line “Turn on the old Victrola”, which refers to an old school phonograph.  I started thinking about obsolete references in songs, and realized there is probably a whole spectrum of such things (I am not well versed in current top 40 tunes so I cannot attempt any sort of off the top of my head blog post on this but I am going somewhere here).  The disco one given above is obsolete on purpose – it is clearly a nostalgic reference to the old days.  The obvious example of a dated reference from a song that sprang to my mind was “jump like a Willys in four wheel drive” from Sugar Magnolia, a Grateful Dead tune with music by Bobby and lyrics by Hunter.  There are several obscurities here; we now use Jeep to mean a different vehicle, Willys has been forgotten, and the lyric refers to a trick you could do with the old Willys.  I remember playing with a Matchbox  toy Jeep Willys depicting it in WWII action when I was a young boy and even then noticing that it was strange that a Jeep was called a Willys, so I imagine few people younger than me who listen to classic rock get the reference.

And yet…just when you form an opinion about something, your worldview is turned upside down.  While catching up on sports news I read this post (warning – very grim language) which has a reference to a watch fob (or watch and fob – a pocket watch with a chain).  The article got me thinking – a watch fob is one of those things that is very outdated.  Most people wear wristwatches – how silly to have a whole get-up where you pull something out of your pocket to check the time.  But…we are now, and have been for a while,  in the cell phone era.  And I (a person who never wears a watch and doesn’t even own one, as a point of pride) pull my cell out a dozen times a day or so to check the time.  For me, and I imagine for others with a similar bent, the cell phone has become a watch fob without the chain.  Funny how things come around again…

The current lineup of VH – the two Van Halen brothers, Eddie’s son Wolfie on bass, and David Lee Roth back on vocals – issued a new single yesterday and will soon release an album of new material (although some of it has its origins in their pre-fame days).  As someone who as a junior high student many years ago considered them the coolest band in the universe I must say this is one of the most exciting things to happen to me in a while.  The new song rocks – you can check it out here.  I love it – it is not Panama or some other such old hit but it is driving and catchy, which is what I want out of a VH song.  Some thoughts on Van Halen…

-I definitely prefer the Roth era of VH to the Van Hagar era.  Early Van Halen was fun party music, while the Sammy stuff is VH for grownups.  There are some great moments with Sammy and he is technically a better singer but Dave is an awesome frontman and I like his stuff best.

-Dave’s leaving of the band in the mid-80s was shattering to us little VH fans.  People forget this now but initially Dave had a very successful solo career although within a few years he slid into irrelevance.  But there was always the pull of him coming back to Van Halen, as the Sammy Years became a time of soap opera – like drama.

-It is hard to believe that Sammy last recorded an album with VH in 1995 – 17 years ago!   (There was a touring reunion and the recording of a few new songs in 2004).  I was an avid reader of various guitar geek magazines at that time and the back and forth between Eddie and Sammy in interviews was dizzying.  It really seemed then that fifty years on we would still be talking about the Dave vs. Sammy argument.

-I mentioned above that I loved the new song Tattoo.  It is catchy in a way that new material from heritage bands (and I don’t mind calling VH that – it is a good thing) often isn’t.  The lyrics are clever Dave-speak and it is good to see the guys bouncing around on stage.  The song is way better than the two they recorded during their initial reunion in 1996.  It is sad that Michael Anthony is no longer welcome in the band.  To me the sound of Van Halen was four special parts combined – the guitar prowess (and keys) of Eddie, Alex’s drumming, which is the most easily identifiable drum sound this side of John Bonham, Dave’s unique voice and phrasing, and the distinctive backing vocals of Michael Anthony.  We will see how much his vocals are missed on the album.

Tonight was the last WPI Blues Jam featuring Liquid Fuel of the semester, and was also the last featuring the current configuration of the band.  Drummer Rob is leaving the area and so we will see how things work out.  Here is the set list from tonight, as best as I can figure out (there were several random jams thrown in – this is an attempt at listing songs that were played):

Born Under A Bad Sign

Yellow Ledbetter

Hoochie Coochie Man

Mustang Sally

Gotta Serve Somebody

Sympathy

Dirty Dishes

The Thrill Is Gone

Willie The Wimp

Run Run Rudolph

Pride & Joy

I am writing this as I download my newly purchased copy of the Beach Boys Smile LP on iTunes.  I am not a huge audiophile; I realize that mp3s are compressed but I appreciate the instant delivery and availability of the music – given my druthers I would fire up vinyl as often as possible for the truest fidelity.  You can catch up on the history of Smile here.    Some thoughts on Smile…

-Smile has always been considered the greatest lost album of all time, partly due to the fact that Brian destroyed some of the tapes.  However, it has been possible to put together a decent facsimile of what may have been intended as the final release due to the abundance of bonus CD tracks that have been released as well as the fact that many of the songs have been put out in various forms – singles, album tracks with modifications, etc. – through the years.  I actually put together a mix earlier this year based on my calculations for what Smile would have sounded like.

-Brian put out a newly-recorded version of Smile a few years back which was pretty well received.  This has become the model for how Smile would have been structured.

-Brian and the Beatles were, in a friendly fashion, inspired by each other and in friendly competition in the mid-sixties.  Brian’s work has been a huge, huge influence on many indie, Americana and other alternative acts these days; the Beatles of course are in their own category for this sort of thing.

-I am, admittedly, a huge Beatles fan, so take the following with a grain of salt: I give the crown to the Beatles hands down.  Smile is great but it does indeed sound very much a product of its time, as do many moments of Pet Sounds.  The Beatles recordings from that period – Revolver especially and Sgt. Pepper – do not sound dated in the least, whether due to lack of reverb, less daring explorations, whatever.

And whatever.  Smile is worth seeking out as a good listening experience and a huge piece of classic rock history.

I have been at the new church, Sts. Anargyroi, in Marlborough for several weeks now and have already written several articles for our monthly zine Sofia (you can read the November issue by clicking on the Sofia button on the home page).  The December one will contain my musings on the Advent season versus the Christmas season, and one thing I mention is the tendency for the local oldies station to play “holiday” (as they call it) music earlier and earlier each year.  I generally boycott until close to Christmas, but in my unfocused button-pushing while driving I still hit the last programmed button occasionally and end up hearing the Christmas music.  Usually I immediately switch stations but if it is a Carpenters Christmas song then I have to hear it out, regardless of how early in Advent we are.  Today I heard (There’s No Place Like) Home For The Holidays – the wiki article points out that it is really more of a Thanksgiving song.  There is a line that goes “the traffic is terrific”, meaning that there is a lot of traffic and it is not a good thing.  This line struck me because it is a rare use of terrific in its original form, with the root of terror, meaning really bad.  The word today is used almost exclusively as a slang term to mean really good.  The Merriam Webster definition bears this out, with the “really bad” definition listed first and the “really good” one listed third.  Interesting stuff.  Some of the Christmas classics contain quaint language but this is an example of a word where the meaning has totally changed in general usage.  This phenomena is one of the reasons that the King James version of the Bible is, to me, not good for everyday use; the problem is not that the language is archaic but that many words are used in it that are still around and have totally different meanings.

Well, not really – certainly no psychedelics were involved.  But after Little Angels and preschool ended, the family went to check out the annual Art In The Park exhibit at Elm Park.  Please check it out – you still have a week and a half or so (I believe it started later than usual this year).  Scoping out the art has become a family tradition, and we always select and compare favorite pieces.  This year mine was this cool one called Portals.  Wouldn’t this make a decent late-60s album cover?

It kind of reminds me of this:

I am a couple of days late with this post but still…one of my monthly traditions (and indulgences) is to go to the bookstore and pick up my British music magazines.  They always come with a CD which is usually hit or miss; I have discovered much great music this way but there are months where there is nothing on the disc of interest to me.  I figured that the CD that came with the latest issue (stateside) of Uncut would be one of the latter – it is called Let The Good Times Roll and is made up of classic New Orleans soul and R&B – not my cup of tea.  Or so I thought – it is tremendous, with a slew of catchy tunes.  Here is a partial playlist, if you wish to seek out the music on youtube or iTunes:

Mardi Gras In New Orleans by Professor Longhair

The Monkey by Dave Bartholomew

Storm Warning by Dr. John

Rich Woman – Li’l Millet & His Creoles

Whirlaway – Allen Toussaint

Single Life – Billy Tate

Let The Good Times Roll – Shirley & Lee

Don’t You Know Yockomo – Huey ‘Piano’ Smith

Walking to New Orleans – Fats Domino

Last year the Beatles remastered CDs came out and it was quite an event.  The Beatles came late to the CD game and when the albums came out on disc for the first time they sounded like they had been  mastered from a cassette tape found under the seat of my old ’83 Dodge.  This was not unusual; the original Zeppelin CDs were so poorly done it was almost criminal.  I was especially excited because among the remasters was a set including all of the mono mixes, as opposed to the stereo mixes of the original CDs and remasters.  You could only purchase the whole set; the mono CDs would not be sold individually, nor would they be issued as bonus material with the stereo ones.

And I had to have the mono CDs.  We tend to think of stereo being superior to mono, but this is not the case with the Beatles.  Most people in the UK during the Beatles’s era owned mono record players and so the band mixed their music for mono rather than stereo hi-fis.  Towards the end this changed: the White Album was only released in stereo in the US and Abbey Road and Let It Be were only issued in stereo period.  The stereo mixes were done without Beatle involvement and in far less detail.  So the music was intended to be heard in mono and there is a major difference.  The drums are heard with their full power, the music is all together – listening to, say, Sgt. Pepper in stereo with headphones on is a jarring experience, with big gaps in the mix, and the music is just fuller in mono.  Furthermore, the mixes often differ considerably, with some songs having different tracks added or subtracted, sped up, different endings, and all sorts of things – this site has an album by album list of the variations.
So I bought the box set.  This was a major purchase and not something I took lightly, but it was the Beatles, so I needed to get it.  I couldn’t wait to hear the Beatles in glorious, as-nature-intended mono.  The set arrived, I opened the package, opened the box set and took a peek at the CDs, which are all in little paper envelopes patterned after the original album artwork.  And then…that was it.  I put it on my bureau, out of reach of the girls, and left it there.  How could I play the CDs and possibly scratch them?  The set was a limited edition – someday soon it might be out of print!  I felt like Nigel in Spinal Tap when he shows off a favorite guitar that he has never played and will never play.  I had to make myself content with going to youtube to hear a song in mono when I felt the need, despite my expensive purchase.

And then I found a solution.  I was hankering to hear Sgt Pepper in mono while driving.  So I very carefully took the CD out, loaded the content onto iTunes, and then put the CD back in its place where it likely will forever stay.  I burned a copy of it from my iTunes and now I can listen to it anytime I please!  It loses a little punch because of the compression but it is still great.  Now onto the other CDs!

Saturday I went over to Mike Barris’s house for a blues jam and some BBQ.  For you northerners, BBQ is not throwing burgers and hot dogs on the grill but rather the fine art of cooking and smoking meat and then serving it with slaw and the chef’s signature sauce.  It is really a southern art, with many regional variations, but Mike is a master, despite his northern habitat .  Mike is also part of the world of competitive BBQ, which is a very, very serious thing.  He is a master at this but he does have a secret weapon: the Cretan culinary gene.  I am convinced Mike’s Cretan roots are what put him over the top as a BBQ master.  Here is a recipe, in his words,  for the sauce he served with his delicious BBQ the other night:

Krazy Kretan’s Basic BBQ Sauce for Barbecue Pulled Pork

2 cups apple cider vinegar

1 small can of concentrated tomato puree

1 to 1 ½ cups of brown sugar (depending on taste)

2 tablespoons of barbecue rub (can be your favorite – it usually includes some combination proportions of paprika, garlic powder, onion powder, salt, pepper, cayenne, and/or chipotle pepper)