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Saturday, January 31, 2009

My Insipid Record Collection - The Stranglers

Sometimes I think if you broke it down by country the lion's share of my music is of British origin. The British Invasion generally refers to the early Sixties as a rule, but I don't really think it ever stopped. I'm not one of those rock fans who has to know where the band came from before I decide if I like them or not. I'm just a fly by the seat of my pants consumer. I can remember a time when album artwork was a minor factor in my inclination to plunk down the ungodly amount of $6.98 for a mid Seventies record, but I got over it. Of course today we buy CDs and many times the artwork never makes it out of the jewel box. I can no longer see the fine print explaining the history behind the recording now anyway with my reading glasses. It's frustrating for sure, but you get used to it. Just don't try to dine in low lighting without them unless you just want to order what the waiter just identified the daily special. Everyone likes the "compact" part of compact disc, but the loss of album artwork and its mysterious effect on the record buying public is something to be mourned.

As I have mentioned in this space ad nauseum, I was searching for new music in my 27th year and I stumbled on The Stranglers. WBCN-FM in Boston, where I worked as a volunteer intern for four years in the go-go Eighties (cue Killing Joke here), was playing the single "Skin Deep" for a short amount of time in 1984. I loved it instantly. It didn't sound like anything else out there to me at the time. I wouldn't call it particularly unique today, but it still has its charm. The Stranglers were mostly from Guilford in the UK. They started out as The Guilford Stranglers, but smartly dumped the Guilford eventually. Beginning with their first release in 1977, The Stranglers were associated with the Punk movement. I'm no music historian, but I didn't/don't see them as Punk at all musically. Punk, however, was the perfect moniker for whatever was going on in 1977. Short, irreverent, loud and snotty music with attitude will always have its place in rock history. But Punk to me was The Sex Pistols, The Ramones and The Clash on top with scores of Dead Kennedy like bands filling the void. I never considered Blondie, Talking Heads, Television, Patti Smith and bands of that ilk particularly punk. Iggy & The Stooges were Punk. Today, Green Day is the face of modern day Punk for better or for worse. I'm aware that Punk is 80% attitude and half musical as Yogi Berra might have once opined, but I like to think of it as more of a sound genre. Was Billy Idol New Wave or Punk? Does it matter? Of course not, but if we are basing it on attitude he was certainly a Punk. If not, he made great music; not that they are mutually exclusive ideas by any stretch. I STILL love Blitzkrieg Bop every time I hear it. It might be the greatest song title EVER too! And I can't even pogo anymore...

The Stanglers did not make aural assault music. In fact they made quite the opposite. Melodies, lyrics, musicianship...what a concept. The Stranglers have in the neighborhood of 16 records on the market. They covered The Kinks, ? & The Mysterians and Dionne Warwick, but they had a slew of original and very interesting singles. Peaches, Golden Brown, Always The Sun and Something Better Change just to rattle off a few. If they slipped under your radar pick up a copy of their Greatest Hits 1977-1990. It's a great starter kit. I hope you like Skin Deep as much as I do. The Stranglers never got much radio airplay, but they had/are having a great run and should be proud. I love their 'tweener status, but the fact is they were just plain good and shouldn't be forgotten.



Posted by John Jay at 11:03 AM 0 comments

Sunday, January 25, 2009

One Track Mind - The Chameleons UK

I don't exactly know what possesses bands to try and remove the "UK" from their name once whatever US based band name conflict has been resolved, but I don't like it. You would think bands like the Charlatans UK and The Chameleons UK would wear the "UK" proudly. It sure does take the guess work out of where they come from right? It even sounds cooler. The Chameleons and The Charlatans are going by their non "UK" names these days (if they are going at all) and I'm not sure what the benefit is. Is it cheaper to make t-shirts with two less letters? They sound like they've been neutered to me. Once you go "UK" you can never go back. That's my motto (among others). OK, now that one of my pet peeves is out in the open let's talk cool alternative rock songs for $500 Jack.

The advent of the compact disc sort of immortalized a lot of these under the radar bands. By that I mean they are digitized for evermore. I can recall for a decade or more many lost classics were never available on CD. Sometimes the artist wasn't satisfied with the condition of the master tapes. Sometimes the labels were shooting themselves in their collective foot and sometimes the tapes were just plain missing, but a CD seems so much more permanent than some reel to reel tape to me. With that an avalanche of bands like The Chameleons UK were able to have what I consider to be a more permanent footprint in rock history. The CDs might go out of print, but at least there is a pristine copy out there somewhere if someone wants it badly enough. Albums got all scratched and neglected (not mine of course) and tapes are an even more shaky proposition. How are all those mixed tapes doing today that you made in the 80's and 90's? Pretty soon we won't be able to buy a machine to play them on I figure. The CD itself will probably be obsolete in ten years, but once they are converted to the MP3 format it shouldn't matter much in our lifetime. But that is not what I came to talk about today (if you can believe that coming from a tangent king)...

There were a handful of 80's and 90's "alternative rock" songs (whatever that means) that came from short lived acts on small labels that became hard to locate as the years went by. I can remember this Manchester band breaking up shortly after releasing their third album, Strange Times, back in 1986. I have to admit right here and now that I didn't buy this record then. It was only years later, after I kept hearing Swamp Thing on WFNX in the 90's, that I made it my mission to own this song. It is an exquisite piece of music for my money. It is ethereal, gothic, melancholy and gorgeous all at once. It is the kind of song that once made you buy a $16.99 import for a single track. It was that good. Fortunately the CD is very good as a whole and it led me to investigate their previous effort, Script of The Bridge, as well. I just checked the preaching to the choir review section of The Chameleons UK & Strange Times and you'd think they were the most influential band of all time. We know that is not true, but Swamp Thing is absolutely one of the greatest alternative rock songs you will ever come across. The fact that you didn't hear it that often and that is was hard to come by only adds to its mystique. I hope you see and hear it the way I do. Enjoy.



Posted by John Jay at 12:53 PM 0 comments

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

My Insipid Record Collection - Harry Nilsson

Since I was nine years of age when Midnight Cowboy was a box office smash, my first real exposure to Harry Nilsson was when his cover of Badfinger's Without You turned into instant AM Gold in 1971. Of course that is not altogether true since Harry penned "One" by Three Dog Night which was massive hit in 1970. I also watched about 1000 hours of The Courtship of Eddie's Father featuring Bill Bixby, but I didn't know the theme song for the TV Show was "Best Friend" by Harry Nilsson either at the time. His cover of Everybody's Talkin' netted Nilsson a Grammy Award and seemed to put him on the map in 1969, but Harry Nilsson didn't start really believing in his talent until he was endorsed by John Lennon who mentioned that he thought highly of him in an interview. They would go on to be infamous drinking companions later in the decade, but this is all about me (kidding!). Songs like Nilsson's version of Without You, Rod Stewart's cover of Tim Harding's Reason To Believe and other sappy fare like Climax's Precious and Few or Terry Jacks' Seasons in The Sun hit me like a ton of bricks as I was discovering the opposite sex for the first time. I couldn't have been more than 12 or 13 years old, but I was having serious anxiety attacks regarding who I would be sitting next to at lunch. At night behind closed doors? Forget it. Aside from my 3rd grade teacher Ms Conomos, my first quasi mutual love affair (sans the sex of course) was a girl named Valerie. I couldn't live if living was without her....or so Harry said. Oh the drama in those days. Never even kissed her if memory serves...story of my life as it turns out I'm afraid...

Nilsson Schmilsson came out in 1971. I think I owned about six records in those days; Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Volume I, The Best of Tommy James & The Shondells, The Rolling Stones' Let It Bleed, The Boxtops Greatest Hits, Donovan's Barabajagal, and The Beatles Let It Be. Not a bad starter kit if I don't say so myself looking back on it. I also had around 100 45 rpm records that I foolishly sold at a garage sale around that time so I could buy baseball cards. Who needs vintage Beatles 45s when you could own two copies of Yankees catcher Jake Gibbs' baseball card? If you said "who?" I wouldn't blame you. Goodbye Glad All Over by The Dave Clark Five. So long Ball of Confusion by The Temptations. Everything must go! Idiot. My point here is my Album Oriented Rock (AOR) days had yet to be realized so being cognizant of Harry Nilsson's Nilsson Schmilsson was not an option yet. I remember a kid named Don that I went to middle school with in rural NJ turning me onto several records simultaneously in the mid seventies. My recollection of those days is understandably foggy, but I remember our music teacher, Mrs Pritchard, was unbelievably cool about letting us listen to contemporary rock music back in the day. Suddenly I was keenly aware of Yes' Fragile, Black Sabbath's Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, Led Zeppelin IV, Aerosmith's Toys in The Attic, the debut Kiss album, Don McLean's American Pie and Nilsson Schmilsson. The rest is history. At the expense of nearly everything of material value and a nice savings account I was spending my brains out on music. Not a lot has changed in 35 plus years I have to tell you.

OK, I'm going to tighten this up now. Many of you are familiar with the song "Coconut" from this record, but the best track on it has always been "Jump Into The Fire." Some of you may have first heard it when it was featured in the movie Goodfellas (a long time favorite of this blogger), but I was already very familiar with it. We used to have these no touch dances in middle school, but the cranky principal, with whom I was on a first name basis strangely enough, was cool about letting us play our music while we tried to work up the courage to ask our favorite classmates to dance. We used several songs that started fast and ended slow or vice versa. Stairway To Heaven, American Pie, Roundabout and Jump Into The Fire seemed to fit into that category. It was debatable if you could dance to any of them frankly, but we definitely tried. These are four iconic songs, but 35 plus years down the road I can barely listen to classic rock staples like Stairway To Heaven and Roundabout because they've been seared into my brain by non imaginative radio formats. American Pie remains a masterpiece to these ears, but you won't find me playing it much or singing along in some bar when it comes on. Call me too cool for school if you like, but it's a little too popular and preppy for me; at least in public. It's enough that I own a copy of the CD. But if I hear note one of Harry Nilsson's Jump Into The Fire? Look the bleep out. The drumming on this track were done by Derek & The Dominos drummer Jim Gordon and it's perfect. In fact the whole track is perfect. I've always been a huge fan of it. Thanks Don wherever you are!

Harry Nilsson's flat in London had its own colossal coincidental claim to fame; when he was out of the country he used to lend his living quarters to musician friends of his in the late seventies. Mama Cass Elliot of The Mama's & The Papa's and legendary Who drummer Keith Moon both died while staying in Harry's apartment roughly four years apart! Are you kidding me? After Moon's death a distraught Nilsson sold his flat to Pete Townshend and stayed in Los Angeles from then on. Harry Nilsson suffered a major heart attack in 1993 and died a year later of heart failure in 1994. He was 53 years old. Hard living apparently finally caught up to him. He had several other minor hits over the years such as Me and My Arrow, Good Times, Spaceman and as the writer of The Monkees version of his "Daddy's Song," but never again would he scale such heights. No matter. Nilsson Schmilsson is a tremendous record and was inducted into my own personal rock record Hall of Fame years ago. You can climb a mountain, you can swim the sea, you can Jump Into The Fire, but you'll never be free...hopefully I'll make Harry a new fan out there somewhere. Enjoy.


Posted by John Jay at 5:47 PM 0 comments

Contest: Spectacle/Sundance Prizepack

The Sundance Channel is running a really cool show hosted by one of the all time greats, Elvis Costello. The show features guests who not only sit down for 1 on 1 conversations with Elvis, but also perform live and jam with Elvis. He opens every episode performing a song related to the guest of the evening.

Episode 8 airs tonight at 9 with Kris Kristofferson, Rosanne Cash, Norah Jones, and John Mellencamp.


We are running a contest to win a great prize pack (pictured above) courtesy of Spectacle. To enter, simply leave a comment with your favorite Elvis album and why, along with your email address so I can notify the winner, and we'll pick the winner by the end of the week. Prize package includes:

1 Keen/Sundance Bag
1 Pair of Speakers
1 T-Shirt
1 Notebook
1 Sigg/Sundance Thermos


Posted by Giant Panther at 4:51 PM 4 comments

Saturday, January 17, 2009

One Track Mind - Willy Deville

OK, I'm on a minor roll so I'm Bringing The Noise again today. Today's trip down memory lane is an exquisite number by a guy named Willy Deville. Willy was making music with his band Mink Deville, originally from San Francisco if I have my facts straight, but was a house band at the legendary New York club CBGBs in the mid seventies. Mink Deville was finally signed by Captiol Records in 1976 and started recording for the masses. Considering they were performing nightly next to The Ramones, The Talking Heads, Television and Patti Smith that gives you an idea of the kind of stage presence this guy had. His reputation was that he radiated blues, story telling and a street knowledge vibe that was a killer combination. Unfortunately I never saw him perform live myself, but I'm keeping my eyes peeled for an opportunity. I always comb the smaller venues for more intimate settings.

Mink Deville went through too many personnel changes to mention here, but Willy finally decided to go solo after after six records and eleven years touring as Mink Deville. If you like what you hear in the song I share below you should look into this guy. He had several great songs like Soul Twist, Mixed Up, Shook Up Girl and Cadillac Walk just to name a few. A greatest hits package like Cadillac Walk: The Mink Deville Collection should get you squared away short term. I'm definitely a fan.

After Mink Deville broke up Willy formed an alliance with Mark Knopfler of all people. According to legend, Mark's wife inspired this collaboration saying Mark couldn't sing like Willy and Willy couldn't play like Mark. I love that kind of stuff. I don't remember making the connection at the time. I don't pay much mind to producers to be honest. I either like a record or I don't; I could care less if it produced by Mark Knopfler, Todd Rundgren, Nile Rogers or Quincy Jones. I'm sure it has more to do with the finished product than I'm giving it credit for, but no amount of production is going to make a bad record sound good in my opinion. As I was researching this record, called Miracle by the way, it hit my like like a ton of bricks. D'oh!! How could I have missed the connection with the first couple of chords being a dead giveaway on my featured cut; Southern Politician? It's classic Mark Knopfler.

Deville is at his all time best for my money on this cut. He does a speak sing thing here that is reminiscent of Lou Reed big time. I might have heard this song once in 1987 and was instantly a fan. That is pretty rare for me. I believe in love at first sight without a doubt, but love at first listen? Well shut my mouth. This song is flat awesome, I don't care what anybody says. I never get tired of listening to it. Willy Deville's solo career unfortunately was even less noticed by the record buying public than Mink Deville was, but I don't care about any of that. People always ask me who sings this song and one of my friends on Cape Cod is just as nuts about it as I am and we have next relatively little in common musically give or take the 1977 masterpiece collaboration by Pete Townshend & Ronnie Lane called Rough Mix. I say that with love in my heart too. Anybody who can find the absolute beauty in this song has common ground with me. I hope you agree.

Editor's Note: Since this post was written Willy DeVille passed away on August 6th just three weeks shy of his 59th birthday. R.I.P. Willy.



Posted by John Jay at 9:33 AM 3 comments

Thursday, January 15, 2009

One Track Mind - The Northern Pikes

I just can't help myself. I love the Way Back Machine! Sherman and Mr Peabody haven't got anything on me. I feel like I'm using that thing everyday these days. If that reference went whistling over your head don't worry about it. Cartoons from the 60's and 70's were my specialty once upon a time. Thank god I have graduated to more respectable fare like The Simpsons, King of The Hill, and The Family Guy huh? I'm all grown up now...yeah right...

Regarding this blog, I struggle to stay current. I absolutely love posting here (thank you GP!), but I feel like I have so many lost classics to get to and every time I look at the release year I feel like Father Time. It's an incredible feeling. I'm not that old! If I didn't have anything else to do I could post three times a day no problem. I have ideas at the gym, at the pizza place and while I'm reading the sports page. We don't get too many comments here at The Giant Panther, but we know people are checking us out. I just hope somebody is enjoying the yesteryear posts I've been throwing at you. Maybe when my entire CD collection is digitized a year from now I won't be so nostalgic. Then again who am I kidding? Folks in my age bracket don't read the Internet blogs like younger music fans do. The younger fans might find my alternative "oldies" fixation antiquated, but I'm trying not to be pedantic. I love the music of today (I'm listening to and digging a band called N.E.R.D. as we speak...oops, just moved on to Ladytron...the GP keeps me hopping even though I'm hopelessly behind in my listening to current Indie music). It's just that I can't leave it alone when I think a song was ignored in its day and is buried beyond words today. I love trying to resurrect them. You don't have to tell me it's completely fruitless. I already know that. It's just that a poor record label can really bury an artist and today we can all be promoters even if the band hasn't spoken or recorded in decades. It's fun! If you are patient with me I'll have it all out of my system in a couple of months...promise (not)...I could do this for another couple of years and never table everything.

As it pertains to this blog The Giant Panther is basically responsible for today. I feel like I'm basically responsible for yesterday. By rights it should be an excellent match, but only the readers know for certain. I was trolling through the "N's" the other day and came across yet another out of print special by The Northern Pikes. I popped in the CD and it all came rushing back to me. In 1987 I was buying everything in sight and I was playing this one a lot back then. The name of the record is called Big Blue Sky and the song I'm sharing today is called Things I Do For Money. These guys hail from Canada and their sound is spacey and expansive to me. It feels like it comes from the great white north. I hope this rings a bell with at least one reader. If it does my work is done. I haven't followed them since to be honest, but they apparently reformed in 1999 and their web site is current. Big Blue Sky was a real sleeper back then and it still sounds good today. Please consider buying the CD the way I did if you can find it. And by all means go see them if they come around. They were good! Enjoy.

The Northern Pikes - Things I Do For Money.mp3

The Northern Pikes - Things I Do For Money.mp3 YSI

www.thepikes.com
Posted by John Jay at 10:24 PM 2 comments

Friday, January 09, 2009

Quick Show Promo - Mission of Burma in Somerville, MA


If you lived in Boston in late 70's or early 80's there was band here that was pushing the envelope. I don't know if they were technically punk, avant-garde, garage rock or what, but they were loud and kind of scary. They were the kind of band that elicited graffiti. Having lived in Kenmore Square for many years behind the local rock club called The Rat (I suppose The Rat could be construed as the CBGB's of Boston for the uninitiated) I could see it for myself. Mission of Burma once played The Fensgate Ballroom at Emerson College on February 5, 1981 according to their tour archives. I saw several bands there back in the day attending school, but for the life of me I can't say I saw this particular show. I had no idea that Burma was the largest country by geography in Southeast Asia at the time and I certainly didn't know what the Mission was. I wasn't sure I wanted to find out either. I only knew the skateboard, punk, skinhead, alternative crowd that seemed to congregate outside the club that Mission of Burma played most often during their initial four year reign (1979-1983) worried this naive young man from rural New Jersey. What a wuss huh? Today you'd chuckle, but back then...

I was just looking over the list of bands they played with and the list is pretty cool. U2, Johnny Thunders, The Young Snakes (Amiee Mann's first band if memory serves), The New Models, The Jim Carroll Band, Pylon, The Psychedelic Furs, The Dead Kennedys, Human Sexual Response, The Cure, Gang of Four, The Neighborhoods, Pere Ubu, The Feelies, The Lyres, David Johansen, The Buzzcocks, The Fall and Sonic Youth all shared the stage with Mission of Burma. Pretty heady stuff huh? They were essentially a three man band with Roger Miller (I know he's heard it a zillion times, but all I can think of is King of The Road when I see his name) on guitar, Clint Conley on bass and Peter Prescott on drums. I know they had a sound engineer named Martin Swope who was also a big part of their sound, but I don't know for sure if he was technically in the band. Regardless, Mission of Burma was a huge Boston name in their heyday and they unfortunately are remembered for mainly two songs. One is called Academy Fight Song and the other is a masterpiece from where I sit. Any list of Boston's all time greatest home grown rock songs that totals more than 30 and doesn't include That's When I Reach For My Revolver is sorely lacking. I know Moby, whom I love dearly, kind of butchered it a couple of years back, but don't let that deter you. This song is legendary. End of story. Oh, and by the way, Mission of Burma has reformed as of 2002 and has released two excellent CDs; OnOffOn and The Obliterati since then. These guys are much better today than there ever were back in the day in my opinion. You should support them. They are playing January 24th, two weeks from tomorrow, at that great little Somerville Theatre venue I was telling you about recently. I'll be in the audience one way or another. Bring your concert plugs; you wouldn't want to contract tinnitus like some people you may know. The concert is a benefit for the Center For The Arts at The Armory so represent for a good cause! I'll be taking attendance people...

Mission of Burma - That's When I Reach For My Revolver.mp3

Mission of Burma -That's When I Reach For My Revolver.mp3 YSI

www.missionofburma.com

Posted by John Jay at 6:26 PM 0 comments

Quick Show Promo - Heartless Bastards

Hi Folks - Just a quick tip for those local to the Boston area. You may have heard me mention these folks about four months ago during my maiden post on The Giant Panther, but Heartless Bastards are scheduled to play Great Scott in Allston in a couple of weeks on February 3rd. It's a school night (a Tuesday), but I plan on attending anyway. I missed them the last time they were around and I don't want to make the same mistake again. The tickets are a very affordable $12 (remember when all concert tickets were in that neighborhood? No? Me neither) so don't let that get in the way of seeing a budding blues garage rock band. Troll through our archives for my two cents on these guys from back in The Fall. Hope to see you there! Don't be afraid to say hello...
Posted by John Jay at 2:41 PM 0 comments

Tuesday, January 06, 2009

My Current Obsession: Here We Go Magic



I stumbled across a band called Here We Go Magic, which turns out to be a stream-of-consciousness recording project of Brooklyn based artist Luke Temple. I was immediately drawn to this music before even listening to the album due to the lengths at which Luke goes to describe his recording process, pointing out that this was a project based on loop based feels, but without actually looping most of the layers. I also love that he requests "headphones please" on his myspace. A production style after my own heart.

Plus anybody that records an album with an SM-57 and a 4 track recorder must be doing something right. What else to you need really? In an era where looping, layering, and every filter/effect known to man is one click away, it's nice to see someone taking a stab at doing things the old fashioned way.

Now on to the music itself. Truly something different than anything else out there, which is not an easy thing to pull off in this day and age. Definitely a loop feel (though not looped), almost in the Paul Simon Graceland album sense with the beats and layers. Interesting syncopation and melodies, and a very addictive album to listen to. Great voice to top it all off, also somewhat along the lines of Paul Simon, but it's worth stressing, the song crafting and end result is like nothing else.

The albums tends to veer in a different direction near the end, but overall an excellent front to back. I'm always drawn to songs that don't follow the traditional mold - vocals coming in when you don't expect them to, song lyrics that seem to start off mid-conversation and instrumentation and vocals each with their own timing. You really need to check Here We Go Magic out, I expect big things from them in the years to come, especially with a focused effort on an new LP hopefully in 2009.

MP3: Here We Go Magic - Tunnelvision Alt Link

Here We Go Magic Website
Buy Here We Go Magic
Posted by Giant Panther at 11:04 AM 0 comments

Thursday, January 01, 2009

My Insipid Record Collection - Elliott Smith

All is quiet on New Year's Day. I can remember when U2's War was released. I was a measly 23 years of age, but I instantly knew they had broken through. I loved October, particularly a little known U2 song called I Threw a Brick Through a Window, but when New Year's Day hit the airwaves it was A New Day Yesterday (thank you Ian) even though it's an old day now. It's kind of funny how the song New Year's Day may never be able to be shelved the songs like David Bowie's 1984 or Prince's 1999 have been. No date. I bet even U2 can't stand that song now. It definitely does describe something very tangible no? Before I blather on, Welcome back to The Giant Panther. I don't know where he's been hiding, but glad he's back on the beam and re-energized about posting...

I didn't come to talk about U2, new beginnings, or resolutions. I came to talk about Elliott Smith. Chances are he's not a very big draw amongst your friends. If you didn't hear Waltz #2 during it's two month run on the radio in 1998 (Happenings Ten Years Time Ago for crying out loud!) it's quite possible you have never heard an Elliott Smith song on the radio. I never would have heard of him myself but for these two female bartenders at one of my favorite hole in the wall bars in Boston called Bukowski's. Obviously named for German American writer Charles Bukowski, this bar is a no frills beer and wine joint on Dalton Street in historic Back Bay Boston. I would have linked you folks to their web site, but it appears they don't even have one. Now that's what I call no frills!

Bukowski's has long been one of my favorite bars in Boston. Not because they have 112 flavors of beer on their menu and delicious cheapo mcgeapo american style bar food served with care; it's because of the music they play. Finding a bar that plays decent music consistently is near impossible these days. I should open a bar for that one fact alone, but I know as an Irishman that is probably not the smartest idea I've ever had. In Boston and Cambridge there are maybe ten bars you can count on to either have a great jukebox (not one of those god awful "make mine next for an extra selection" two songs per CD jukeboxes you see everywhere), I'm talking about a real jukebox with full CDs and a great selection. Charlie's Kitchen in Harvard Square comes to mind. So does The Seven's on Charles Street in Beacon Hill. J.J. Foley's on Kingston Street in the Financial District is a third. A bar that not only has a good jukebox, but isn't afraid to play it loud...with good sound quality. I think nothing of pouring five or ten dollars in these jukeboxes even if I don't plan on being there very long or know if I'll hear even a single song I played. It's just such a pleasure to spend time in these places. I have to admit that I don't really care much for any bar that doesn't put the accent on music and sound quality. It blows my mind frankly. I don't care who the clientele is or what they represent. Lousy sound just grates on me like nobody's business. Where was I? Oh yeah, Bukowski's...what makes this place even better than these other places I mentioned is they let their bartenders play whatever they want complete with volume. Whole CDs. It can be very educational if you are a sponge like me...

One day about five years ago I strolled into Bukowski's in the late afternoon. The girls behind the bar were singing along to Elliot Smith's Figure 8 CD. I had never heard anything else by him except that one song called Waltz #2. As I often did, I inquired and wrote down what they told me. Half the time I'd hit Newbury Comics on the way home and picked up the CDs I'd just asked about in the bar. Those were Good Times; Damn Good Times. Sorry, I just can't help myself sometimes. In those days, I would grab an entire handful of CDs by an artist I was curious about on somebody's say so. I think I bought Figure 8, Either/Or and XO that day. It's kind of dangerous because if you don't get to them right away they could all sit unlistened to. Luckily I gave these a fair shake. Some years later I read one of his biographies called Elliott Smith and The Big Nothing too. I was intrigued; not only about his mysterious death/suicide, but where this guy came from. If memory serves he was born in Nebraska and migrated to Texas and Portland, OR during his childhood. He attended Hampshire College in Amherst, MA and struggled his brains out with self confidence. That's tough for a solo artist huh? Maybe he was manic depressive, but the way his life ended was just plain sad.

I have had real trouble relating Elliott Smith to friends. I made the mistake of dumping his entire catalogue on a friend of mine and he was lukewarm at best to his music. I can see where that might happen, but it only made me more determined to find a way to boil this guy down for mass consumption. I was at The Giant Panther's DJ gig about three weeks ago and he didn't have Smith's whole catalogue on his computer. It was surprising because he seems to have nearly everything since the turn of the century the way I think I have nearly everything since 1965. He didn't have a copy of Junk Bond Trader, one of my all time favorite Elliott Smith tracks from Figure 8. As I sit here typing I'm actually recalculating my top five Elliott Smith cuts. Five Songs. That's it. If you can find a way to latch onto these five songs something might click for you here. Yes Steven Paul "Elliott" Smith is basically just an acoustic singer songwriter and they are a dime a dozen, but I swear this guy was just getting started. It seemed as if he'd been through the worst in his life. I don't know why he did it, if he did it, but he shouldn't have. Elliott Smith died on October 21, 2003 at age 34 in Los Angeles. Based on these five songs I would love to have witnessed his musical future. Know what else makes this guy great? Someone else could swoop in and give you five completely different songs that they like best. Don't be afraid to leave a comment to that effect. OK, we're off in 2009...

Elliott Smith - Junk Bond Trader.mp3

Elliott Smith - Pretty (Ugly Before).mp3

Elliott Smith - Rose Parade.mp3

Elliott Smith - Cupid's Trick.mp3

Elliott Smith - Waltz #2.mp3

Elliott Smith - Pictures of Me.mp3 YSI (Bonus Track)

Posted by John Jay at 12:01 AM 2 comments
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