The Quest for Bob part 1: "magnum opus"

I throw around the term "Magnum Opus" a lot. As an aspiring music critic(i.e. This Hack's for Hire(oh look, a Toasters pun(and triple parenthetical clauses!) I tend to try and quantify where my favorites bands peaked and waned. With the Slackers, I must say some what emphatically, the Wasted Days album will probably turn out to be their best work, particularly when considered as a multimedia album, since the CD and LP are so startlingly different in scope and overall tone and focus, they form what is pretty much a two part release. Where the two platforms do overlap, the tracks are alternate version, possibly even alternate takes, but that requires research, which as a Hack, I have not the time for; gotta get those words to make that dollar-- hence appositives and parentheses and interjections. With the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, I think most would be hard pressed not see the band's fifth album, 1997's Lets Face it show cases what I think most fans would see as the confluence of their older, hardcore influenced sound, with the pop sensibilities of their later records. I say most, because I personally think Question the Answers Captures them at the critical point just prior to their pop success, and showcases what for me, the band was all about before said mainstream breakthrough, yet let it be known, that Lets Face It is probably one of the best rock albums of the 90's. I will fight you over this a-la "Beat It" music video.

I feel that with certain artists and genres I can critically look at their work and make such qualitative judgments with a fair amount of accuracy. I begin to have some trouble with older artists, as I can not evaluate them in the context of their time, or have not heard enough of their catalog to pin down an actual peak. Boston(S/T) is an exception, and perhaps so are the Velvet Underground (White Light/White Heat), The Who(Who's Next(that one hurts to say it), and maybe, if I want to step on some toes, The Beatles(Rubber Soul). But one artist who i don't even know where to begin with is Bob Dylan. Normally, i would just poll my friends who like Dylan and ask what they would pick as his best album ever, but i know that would be an exercise in futility. This one likes the Nashville Skyline era Dylan, soandso like the early electric stuff, and guy tree, doesn't really know much about Dylan or even music it turns our, and was just rocking what ever Rolling Stone had told him to.

Granted, much of my own curiosity about Mr. Dylan's music is fueled by his receivers throne in the Great Hall of Rock Journalist Fellators(along with John Lennon, The Rolling Stones, and others). Not to say that such seats aren't warranted to many artists, but i just refuse, as Lester Bangs refused before me, to buy into that every artist can maintain a consistent greatness for twenty to thirty years. It just doesn't work like that. Because it doesn't work like that, it means that some point Bob Dylan peaked, and perhaps he pealed again a while later. Further more, when we compare folk Dylan talking about the times and how they are a changin' and answers blowin' in the wind to the one strung out in Mobile, Alabama or contemplating Tombstone, Arizona and talking about ladies laying across his big brass bed or what ever he's turned out in the last year, you now have a series of eras to compare. 


I must say that I am not attempting to deride Dylan, but it has always seemed to me that artists with careers as long as his have lot of shit covering the diamonds in their catalog. Now one could just take those stones handed to him by others in the form of bits from sound tracks, compilations, etc. We all know that "Blowing in the Wind" and "The Times They are a Changing" are American classics, and that Hurricane was a land mark hit of the 70's and so on. But at some point, curiosity means that one has to put on the haz-mat suit a-la Bill Murray in Caddy Shack and go into the tainted pool to retrieve the proverbial gem(or candy bar, as was the case in Caddy Shack).


Its time to suit up...

Resonance: Rock and Roll Radio is dead; long live Rock and Roll Radio

 DISCLAIMER: This entry was composed over about 4-6 months and at least 5 writing sessions. I don't know what its about anymore, what it was about in the beginning, and it will probably be revised in the future until I'm happy with it.

Everyone has those songs that reach into their chest and squeeze their heart. Some even can pull it out and have it catch fire a la Temple of Doom. I've done nothing this week but listen to those songs.

I guess I'll start with "Do You Remember Rock n Roll Radio" by The Ramones. Joe Queer sums up this song for me:

I talked to Joey about it, and that song, “Do You Remember Rock ’n’ Roll Radio?,” (sings)  “Do you remember lying in bed, with the covers pulled above your head?” And I said to Joey, "I couldn’t believe you wrote that line.” And he just laughed and asked why, and I said I thought I was the only one who ever did that. 

The idea of listening to the transistor radio until you fall asleep seems to be a sort of archetype in this country. I used to tune my clock radio into into the Oldies station when i was little, or sometimes into one of the myriad country stations. When I was in middle school and early high school, I began tuning into Beth "Damn" Donahue on 102.9 WBUZ at night, and listening until Valery came on to do overnights, at which point I began to fall asleep. Not too many years later, i got turned on to college radio and my mind was blown. Goal No.1 from then on was to get on that talk'ity box. Which I successfully have done. I'm sorry-- BACK TO THE RAMONES and Rock n Roll Radio

I never listened to the 80's Ramones stuff until I heard "Danny Says" and at the risk of an Interweb shitstorm(HAHA! no one reads this blog!), End of the Century became one of my favorite Ramones Albums. That and Leave Home. All the songs on End of the Century just speak to me. And Phil Spector's wall of sound is a nice change of pace. I love songs about the radio, particularly ones about making it relevant again. Down by Law's "Nothing Good on the Radio" still kicks ass and rings true today, in spite of being some how more dated than the former song that came out like 15 to 20 years prior. 

Rock n Roll Radio hearkens back to an era that, as a college radio DJ, I wish i could be a part of. I'm the sort of guy who gets chills during the scene with Wolfman Jack in American Graffiti 

 

Now, I personally substitute Wolfman for Murray the K, because I thought The K sucked up too much to the Beatles. Not to malign the man, but I just wasn't impressed with that sort of thing. Anyway, the point is that radio, which for me is a treasured medium, is in its death throws as far as having any real cultural relevance. To illustrate, even NPR news corespondent Mara Liasson also moonlights on Fox News to pay the bills.

As I look to start a career in radio, I begin to notice that there is little place for the things I want to do. Gone are the days of a few DJs breaking new artists by taking a chance on a debut single that had come in the mail. Now the new stuff that breaks on most commercial radio stations is what has been sent down from the ivory towers in New York, L.A., and --in my neck of the woods-- Nashville. I am sure that to a point, it has always been this way, but with so many stations turning to syndication, automated systems(particularly Variety Hits formats), which require no DJs at all, and remove most of the slight programming input DJs and listeners ever had.


I personally feel this has killed radio. Many of my reasons are summed up in this Wolfman Jack interview from 1995:





While I some what wonder about the validity of The Wolfman's notions of computers using advanced algorithms to select the hits, its not far from the Truth(with a capital T, to underscore the subjective nature of this truth) that much of our modern hit parade has been completely mechanized. The thing is, while I can remember scores of chart topping artists since the mid 90's, I can recall very few of those hits and much of them don't really seem to evoke much emotional response from me. Bare in mind that I am referring to top 40 pop hits, as opposed to say some of the very iconic rock songs from that time. Furthermore, many of these songs I remember seem to have faded from the cultural memory around me. You don't still hear Pennywise's "Fuck Authority"(peaked at 38 on the Modern Rock Tracks) in most markets. Likewise with most Green Day songs released after 1997 and before 2004(and even the singles from American Idiot have all but disappeared from most airwaves)

Granted top 40 was never about playing songs that were popular, but will I turn on my radio in 25 years to an oldies station and think "Ah, I remember the last time I ever kissed my first girlfriend before she went back to Tokyo, this song was on the radio" when I hear 311's "Amber". Probably not... when was the last time you heard a 311 song other than "Down"? And then only during a 90's weekend on the Modern "Bro(read: Cock)" Rock stations.