El Burro Volador

It’s been a while now since I got my ipod playlist squared away to the point where I could begin adding and subtracting for aesthetic reasons instead of a brute attempt to impose order on a chaotic mass of music.  So what have I been up to?  Well, the first thing to do seemed to be to start gathering all my cds together and importing the worthwhile ones.  I had a ton of space to work with; the ipod was a shade under half-full with about two days of music on it, so there was room for, by my conservative estimate, eleventy-billion more songs.

Even though space wasn’t much of a concern, I decided that I should work on trimming the irksome, inappropriate, and mystifying selections out of my playlist, so I decided that for every cd I added, I would hunt down and eliminate one undesired track.  Even though this process has occurred over several weeks, I am still able to offer you a detailed look at the cuts and additions by virtue of my neurotic, compulsive behavior, which prompted me to keep records of everything I changed.  Seriously, I’m not sure I shouldn’t have a minder…

What’s In

The Best of Van Morrison – So, so many great songs from this amazing singer.  From “Brown Eyed Girl” and “Wild Night” to lesser-known gems like “Wonderful Remark”, “Jackie Wilson Said”, “Full Force Gale”, “And It Stoned Me”, “Cleaning Windows” – the whole cd is just stuffed with great tracks.  I remember going to see David Gray when he came to town, and when he covered “And It Stoned Me” as an encore, it just knocked me and ‘Bekah right out – Van’s version is better, but it still just about doubled the value of the evening.

Born in the USA – I had some of these tracks on there already, so some clerical work was necessitated to avoid duplicate tracks, but this album is essential, and not just for the big hits.  I was listening to “Darlington County” when the Towers were hit on 9/11, which is a bit eerie, considering that the song mentions the World Trade Center, and has to be just about the only rock song to do so prior to the attacks…

The River, disc one – Not that the first disc is better, I just haven’t found disc two yet.  Although, as I look over the track list, seeing the title song, as well as “Sherry Darling”, “Hungry Heart”, “Out in the Street” – maybe this is the better disc…

Sin City soundtrack – This is an odd playlist choice, but it is a helluva good record for driving around to, bringing this dark, edgy noir feel from beginning to end.

Live Wide Open, disc one – Oh, Martin, you are so good live.  The versions of “Angeline” and “Hallelujah” on this disc are sublime, and the whole thing is a treasure.  Now where is that second disc?

Genius, The Best of Warren Zevon – Warren is one of the major deities in my personal pantheon, possibly rock’s best lyricist.  Unlike some snarky, cynical singer-songwriter types, he’s a bonafide rocker.  This album is a trove of his best work, ranging from the sly (“Poor Poor Pitiful Me”, “Mr. Bad Example”), to the silly (“Werewolves of London”), to the downright vicious (“Play it All Night Long”), and then, sprinkled here and there amongst this glittering hoard of mordant wit, are moments of such candor and desperation (“Carmelita”, “Splendid Isolation”, “Genius”)  that the whole thing is elevated to a work of…well, genius.

Born to Run – One of rock’s iconic albums.  There’s really nothing else that needs to be said about this one, but I’ll add my two cents.  In addition to the titular rock anthem, this album contains “Jungleland”, this nine-and-a-half minute epic that just dizzies me every time I listen to it.

AJ’s Xmas Mix#1 – Thanks for making this for us, AJ.  If nothing else, I haven’t had “Hook” since I lost my copy of Four, and my whole face just lit up when I saw that on your liner notes.

Experience Hendrix – This is a “best of” which has pretty much all the Hendrix I need.

The Legend of Tommy Johnson – This was burned for me by a peer of mine in college.  He accidentally put the schmaltzy final track on first, and I very nearly discarded the cd without listening to the rest.  That would have been a grievous mistake, as Chris Thomas King is one of the best bluesmen on the modern scene.

Let the Music Take You Home – I really should have mentioned this on St. Patrick’s Day.  Seamus Kennedy’s name alone is ridiculously Irish, and listening to this incredibly charming and funny collection of songs and stories counts as about half a trip to the Emerald Isle.

Past Masters, Volume Two – The Beatles.  “Hey Jude” and others that you can’t do without.

Cheap Trick Live At Budokan – Their best album, and one of the best live albums in my collection.  This version of “I Want You to Want Me” is one of those instances where, if you’ve heard the studio version first, you listen to the live version and say “Oh, so that’s what that song is supposed to sound like!”

For Those About to Rock – AC/DC, and not one of their absolute best, but sometimes you just need these hard-rockin’ bastards.  The title track is of course a good deal of fun.

What’s Out

Virtually all of Denis Leary’s Merry F#%$in’ Christmas.  Not really safe for work, and a lot of it was not really worth hearing again and again, anyway.

“At the Beginning” – Donna Lewis and Richard Marx.  What the…?  Did Ty put this on here?

“All the Young Dudes” – Mott the Hoople.  This is one of the most overrated songs in the rock canon.  It has that distinctive David Bowie suckiness despite the fact that he gave it to another band to perform.

“Be True to Your School” – The Beach Boys.  I think we all know how I feel about these guys, and this ode to school spirit was singled out for special attention because it’s just so nauseating.

“Better Days” – The Goo Goo Dolls.  Again, I’m not really sure how this got on here.  It’s not especially bad, just lackluster.  I stumbled across it while looking for something to cut, didn’t recognize it, gave it a couple of listens and just had a reaction of “meh”, so in the recycle bin it went.

“Closer to Fine” – Indigo Girls.  Ty is much more of a lesbian than I am, and put several of the IG’s songs on my computer.  They don’t really “speak” to me, which is not surprising, since they were not talking to me in the first place.  I liked this song ok when I was a young high school kid searching for meaning and whatnot, but now that I’m a drudge heading into middle age, all I’m searching for is security for my loved ones and a way to blog without running afoul of senior citizens in Minnesota.

“Counting Blue Cars” – Dishwalla.  Cool band name, but this song just irks me for some reason.  Its memorable refrain of “Tell me all your thoughts on God” reminds me of those conversation you would have as a teenager, sometimes until the wee hours of the morning, about God, Life, Love, Society, Poetry – all these things of which you had very vague conceptions (and, as you were soon to discover, much less practical knowledge than was required to keep you from getting hurt), but about which your opinions were nevertheless very strong.  Ah, me, what times those were.  I’m certainly going to enjoy not thinking about those times again for a long, long while.

I invested an hour this morning and finally finished the long and methodical process of paring away all the duplicate tracks from my ipod playlist.  Along the way I’ve eliminated some of the more awful pieces that turned up, as well as purging all xmas music (if I want it back, I’ll put it back in November at the earliest).  Finally, my playlist has shrunk from a bloated, unwieldy 1,002 tracks to a svelte 770 tracks.  While this is still more than two days worth of music, there are no “wasted” tracks now, and everything is neatly ordered by artist and title.  I feel like I can move on from here.

My next step, I think, will be adding music from my cd collection onto the playlist, while discarding the remaining dross.  I know there are some of the less tolerable parts of Ty’s legacy lingering in there, and I have grown sick of certain items acquired in the frenzied pillaging of my youth as well.  The difference is, eliminations will be made now purely on the basis of taste, not the need to clean up my filing system.

A number of music related things are going on at the moment.  For starters, the long slog through my ipod’s playlist, making sure everything is titled correctly, is over.  Yay!  Now I just have to sweep through one last time, trimming out any duplicates that have been revealed by this reorganizing, and I’ll have a pretty good foundation from which to proceed.

In addition, I made two music-related purchases on the recent Valentine’s Day book romp.

The first is Bruce Springsteen’s new album, Working On A Dream.  I normally don’t allow myself to spend bookstore money on cds, but I made an exception for The Boss.  I am finishing my second listen to the album, and I must say that there weren’t many songs that made a knockout first impression (except Outlaw Pete), though the album as a whole flowed together beautifully.  A second listen has cemented the first 6 or 7 songs as strong additions to Springsteen’s repertoire, though I generally feel like the album kind of peters out after that.  The exception to this would be the “bonus track” at the end of the album, Springsteen’s award-winning contribution to the soundtrack of The Wrestler.

The other purchase was more of an accident.  I finished book shopping before ‘Bekah, and decided to pick out one of those hefty reference-type tomes to read while I waited for her to finishing browsing.  The book that I picked up was called 1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die and said it was part of the “before you die” series, which apparently spun off the success of the book 1,000 Places to See Before You Die.  Must be some other people out there who are as list-obsessed as I am.  Who woulda thunk it?

Anyhow, I ended up reading the preface and being hooked by the damn thing, which shows you that the author knew what he was about when he wrote it.  He managed to infuse it with the passion and promise of the three-year quest he went on to assemble the thing, so I couldn’t help but be curious as to what made the cut.  Also, he sounded eminently knowledgeable, and explained his method for organizing the book in a very lucid way, which appeals to several of my neuroses.  I’ve decided that, funds permitting, I am going to begin delving into this list one recording at a time, and share the destinations and experiences with y’all.

I was planning to write about some other nifty old songs that had surfaced on my ipod playlist, but I happened to hear one yesterday that irked me, so I’ve decided instead to write about why I never really liked the whole surf rock phenomenon.

The song in question yesterday was “Surf City”, a Jan and Dean tune co-written with the evil mastermind of the whole surf genre, Brian Wilson (of Beach Boys fame).  If you are looking for a reason not to like this song, you don’t have to go very far.  The first line of the song is really one of the most objectionable, but it is really the refrain, so we’ll skip to line 2:

“I bought a ’30 Ford wagon and we call it a woody”

Seriously?  ‘Cause I’m pretty sure that a “woody” meant somethin’ else, even back in 1963.  I’m sure you juvenile creeps had tons of fun with those clever little innuendos – “All the girls agree that my woody is a pretty sweet ride – huh huh huh”, or “Hey Bobby, Sherry told me you two had to cut your date short ’cause your woody broke down.”

Anyway, the point of the song is that these fun-loving guys are “goin’ to surf city, ’cause it’s two to one” – or, as they spell out later, there are “two swingin’ honeys for every guy, and all you gotta do is just wink your eye.”  Wow, what a cool place.  Guess girls are just so desperate to get with these cool guys that they don’t mind sharing.  How many passengers can your woody handle?

This kind of underscores my problem with the whole genre.  It is about the blessed, the vacuous leaders of charmed lives.  Take, for example, this lyric from the Beach Boys track “I Get Around” (you and your woody, both, pal!):

“My buddies and me are gettin’ real well known

Yeah, the bad guys know us and they leave us alone”

In the same song, they also mention a car that’s “never been beat” in a race (nobody’s woody is faster than mine!).  All is success, friends, and adoration from the opposite sex.

Well, I’d like to write now as a self-appointed spokesperson for my people, the outsiders.  And not the cool hipster outsiders, either: the malformed, the failures, the weirdos and the weak. The oddballs, the forlorn, the f***-ups and the freaks.  The untalented, the shiftless, the unloved and the unwell.  The ugly, the awkward, the unfortunate, and the unlikable.  The lost, and most of all – the losers.

And what I (we) would like to say to the golden surfer-boy types is simply this: Take your “woody” and shove it up your a**.  Y’know what the “bad guys” are doing while they leave you alone?  They’re beating us up in the parking lot.  Or figuring out ways to steal a little bit more from our paychecks with hidden charges, late fees, telemarketing scams and “special taxes”.  Or regretting to inform us that our spot on the team, our admission to their college, or our dream job has just been given to you.  Well, you deserve it, after all.  You have the right face, the right words, the right attitude and the right skill-set to navigate this shallow, hollow, pretty, petty world.  And damn us double for wanting in so badly…

I continue to thresh out the chaff from my ipod playlist slowly but surely.  One interesting development is a decided bias toward old rockabilly, rhythm & blues, and early rock and roll that has been created because these are the types of music I downloaded straight to my computer rather than purchased on cd (not all of my cd collection has been transferred to the computer yet).

Since this playlist is what I find myself listening to at work all the time, I’ve kind of been in a musical time machine lately.  I thought I would select a few of these old gems to share with you, gentle reader.

“Mona” – Bo Diddley  His “I’m a Man” is awfully good as well.

“Lonely Weekends“ – Charlie Rich Sounds so much like a young Elvis Presley it is uncanny.

“Dedicated to the One I Love” – The Five Royales If you’ve only heard the sugary cover versions of this song by The Shirelles or The Mamas & the Papas, then you haven’t heard this song for real.

“Maybe” – The Chantels “Every Night (I Pray)” is also a terrific song.  There just aren’t many singers who get across yearning like this any more.

“A Fool in Love” – Tina Turner While I’m not sure that the relationship described in the lyrics is all that healthy, you just have to check out the raw, soulful power Tina puts into this vocal. (sorry there’s no link – can’t find my favorite version on the interweb).

There are certainly more treasures on the old playlist, but I thought this handful (all recorded no later than 1960) would do for a start.

(disclaimer: I stayed up far, far too late last night at the gaming group, and am short on both cleverness and enthusiasm this morning.  I am going to soldier on through this post, but if my prose lacks its usual…verve…there’s your explanation)

A little while ago I mentioned that I was considering using the lucre I got for Christmas to acquire a cheap mp3 player and docking station for the shop so that I could rock out at work.  Well, ‘Bekah volunteered the services of her ipod, and I was able to get a pretty decent docking station for it to occupy (thanks, Mom), so it is the dawn of a new era at work.

I actually finished acquiring all this stuff last week, but it took me a little while to get set up, so I didn’t manage to execute my plan until last Friday.  It may seem like a small thing, but having my music at work has made all the difference in the world.  Last Friday was one of the best days I’ve ever put in, and the last couple have flown by as well.  I’m having conversations about music in the middle of my day now, and getting a huge boost whenever the shuffle function kicks out one of my favorite songs (I can finally check off my lifedream of being at work on a car on a Friday afternoon when “Out in the Street” comes on the radio).

One choice that I made when setting up the ipod has had rather more serious ramifications than I anticipated.  Y’see, when I synced the thing up with my computer, I just told it to dump all the audio files from my hard drive on there.  What I had failed to consider was that I have a lot of audio files on there that I don’t want to listen to everyday.  There are three main sources of problem audio files:

1) For a while, as I went through the teacher licensure program, I surreptitiously recorded conversations in order to acquire blackmail material on key School District officials.  Obviously there are better soundtracks for a workday than the confessions of frustrated child molesters.  Luckily, itunes grouped most of these together and I have already been able to weed them out.

2) Back in the days when I was squatting in an abandoned dorm room at the U. of Rochester, a friend made frequent use of my then-brand-new computer (Crazy, right – I had no fixed address, but I’d haul my high-end desktop with me in my car, and somehow it never got stolen) and its CD burner, which at the time was pretty cutting edge.  This friend dumped a bunch of music onto my hard drive, most of which I never deleted.  Now, some of this music was quite good, and I was introduced to great artists this way (Rush, for example), but much of it sucks.  This stuff is all mixed in with my other tracks, so I’ve just been waiting for it to play and then marking it for death.

3) Also back in my semi-homeless in Rochester days, the same friend introduced me to the whole peer-to-peer network bonanza.  This was back in Napster’s heyday, before the RIAA was sending squads of jackbooted goons to kick down the doors of suspected pirates.  Even then, my scruples didn’t permit me to pirate living artists, but I bagged tons of old ragtime, swing, jazz, rockabilly, blues, rhythm and blues, and early rock tracks.  Sometimes I would download multiple versions of the same song just to be safe, because the sound quality of these illicit morsels varied widely and I wanted to be sure of getting a listenable version.  These duplicates are relatively easy to locate as well, but I am very lazy, so I haven’t got rid of them all yet.

In a way, all these unwanted tracks are a good thing, because now I get to fine-tune my playlist, which gives me a project.