The Weekly Meat

Mixtape

Each year around the holidays, I do a mixtape for family and friends, as a way of saying, "You must hear this. Now." This year, the CD burner on the iMac shit the bed, so we're entering the eco-friendly fully digital realm. Download at will. And let me know what you think in the comments.

Playlist:

1. Haunted — Shane McGowan & The Popes
2. Real Good Looking Boy — The Who
3. Leader of the Pack — The Shangri Las
4. If I Were a Carpenter — Johnny Cash w/June Carter Cash
5. Foundations — Kate Nash
6. Another Nail in My Heart — Squeeze
7. Will It Go Round in Circles — Billy Preston
8. Say Hey — Michael Franti & Spearhead
9. It Mek — Desmond Dekker & The Aces
10. Steve's Hammer — Steve Earle
11. I Am the Light of This World — Blind Gary Davis
12. Special Friend — Larry Davis
13. Hemingway — Blue Clocks Green
14. The Crawl — Spirit of the West
15. When Will I Be Loved — John Fogerty & Bruce Springsteen
16. The Road to Rock 'N' Roll — Joe Strummer
17. Cover of the Rolling Stone — Dr. Hook & The Medicine Show
18. Saucy Johnny — Maggi, Pierce, & EJ
19. Hurt — Johnny Cash
20. Santa Ana — Bruce Springsteen
21. Up to Me — Bob Dylan
22. Haunted — The Pogues

Download zip file
+ track 22 (added late)

Liner Notes:

1/22. Haunted: An A-one Pogues song. A duet, written for the Sid & Nancy soundtrack. I won that LP by answering a trivia question correctly during a college radio station giveaway. It's a middling punk/pop soundtrack, and a so-so movie, but it gave me this song, which provided pitch perfect melancholy to my early 20s. Shane MacGowan would later re-record it with Sinead O'Connor. His version is raw, and not without its toothless charm, but the Elvis Costello-produced Pogues version with Cait O'Riordan is indeed haunting and beautiful, and ever my favorite. Here's both; you be the judge

3. Leader of the Pack: This tune was on a K-Tel–style compilation we had around the house when I was young. I ate it up. I was probably only 12 or 13, and this was right in the wheelhouse of my burgeoning fantasy world of heroism and melancholy.

11. I Am the Light of This World: In March, this song was played to great effect at the funeral for the son of a friend and former boss. Andy was 24 and had been teaching in Laos when he died. To put it much too simply, he was a good kid and the world will be a lesser place without him. After the funeral, I sought out my Blind Gary Davis CD and heard this old song in a new way that will forever be the way I hear it. For you, in heaven, Andy. Godspeed.

12. Special Friend: The Replacements led me to Alex Chilton, which led me to his work as a producer, which led me to this little gem.

13. Hemingway: Again, college. My senior year this time. One Saturday afternoon, painting in the art studio and listening to the station broadcasting from the other side of campus. It was what was called a progressive station, in those salad days before progressive stopped meaning anything to anyone. In any case, it was right there and then that I heard what might well be the catchiest tune ever written. It's not by anyone you've ever heard of, nor has it ever been featured in a John Hughes film, nor a hipster car commercial. But here it is — a perfect pop song.

16. The Road to Rock 'N' Roll: See TWM post on Joe Strummer.

18. Saucy Johnny: Very funny tune by friends Maggi, Pierce, & EJ.

19. Hurt: See TWM post on hurt.

21. Up to Me: See TWM post on song memories. One of my top five favorite songs of all time.

Top Five Punk Albums of All Time

If you set out to write lyrics to start off a punk record, you could scarcely do better than Patti Smith on Horses:

"Jesus died for somebody's sins, but not mine..."

Her snarl is nuanced and a bit understated, but there is no mistaking that she is not a chick to be trifled with. Along with Bruce Springsteen's classic first line of Thunder Road, "The screen door slams, Mary's dress sways..." it is my favorite album opening of all time. And one of my top five punk records. Hands down.

The criteria here is not how influential the record is or was (yes, I have old Stooges albums, but I don't actually listen to them) nor how great a particular song off it might be, it's how the thing holds together as a record, and how it holds up ~30 years later.

Patti Smith's Horses does both. It's a piece of something big, and a bit of a commitment, in the way that Coltrane's Love Supreme is. It pulls you in, asks that you stick with it, and pays you off in the end. And if it had never been released, it would still sound as new today as it did in 1975.

I've written before about the excellence of Minor Threat's classic first EP. No need to rehash that. It certainly rates among the top five punk records on most anyone's list. Mine included.

And I've shouted my love for Joe Strummer on these pages as well. Particularly, for The Clash's London Calling — a seminal record of my frustrated high school years. And an easy top five pick.

We've gotta have a Ramones record in there, and their eponymously-titled debut is it. Musically, it's a near tie with End of the Century, but the debut has more gravitas and attitude. Released in 1976, it rocks like few do, opening up with the blistering "Blitzkreig Bop." And it introduces all the now-familiar Ramones themes: three-chord songs, brilliantly sophomoric lyrics, retooled rock and roll oldies. Trashy, loud, garage-y, punk-y, yet still poppy enough that your kids or your parents can dig it.

And so we come to both the final album and the starting point of this exercise. Jim Carroll died last week ("I salute you, brother!"). When I found out, I posted to Facebook that The Jim Carroll Band's Catholic Boy was one of my top five punk albums of all time. It was a knee-jerk reaction, and I later started wondering if I really believed it to be true. I do. Any day.

It's an outstanding album. I ripped it to my computer the other day. In this age of digitizing music, one has the option to upload only the songs one deems worthy of disc space. With Catholic Boy, there is no filler. Of the 10 songs, I would rate 8 as being excellent, and two or three as being outstanding. It's still a fantastic album. Attitude, lyrical and sonic goodness, grit, Carroll's cool phrasing.

There they are — my top five.

P.S. If you want to argue that any of these are not punk enough for you, fine, no worries — trade out one of them for the Sex Pistols' Never Mind the Bollocks... A bloody mess, but no one had more attitude than the Pistols. And despite themselves, they managed to record some excellent tunes.

Patti Smith — Gloria
Ramones — Listen to My Heart
The Jim Carroll Band — Three Sisters

The Best Short-Lived Bands

One-hit wonders and folks who put out only one great album are a dime a dozen. Tougher to list are outstanding bands who made only outstanding music, but for whom things too quickly fell apart.

Sure, these discussions tend to bring up Clapton's short-lived band Cream, and more recently, Jeff Buckley. I can buy both, but I was never a huge fan of either, so there we are.

It would be difficult to consider the Sex Pistols as being a great band. A musical mess, but they had the right look, attitude, and sound at the right time. They wound up being influential, and, with help, they managed to record a half-dozen absolutely classic songs. For that, hail the Pistols. But thank Christ they didn't last.

A much, much better punk band whose reign was about as short as the Pistols — but whose music was tenfold better — was Minor Threat. Their first EP clocks in at all of 15 minutes, but remains one of my all-time favorites. And that seminal, stark album cover ranks up with the Paul Simonon bass-wrecking shot on The Clash's London Calling.

More importantly, Minor Threat's influence was widespread and significant, musically (where many aped their speed, sound, and delivery), culturally (where, for equal numbers of bands, they crystallized the indie-punk politics and aesthetic, and unwittingly began a Straight Edge movement), and industry-wise (where their indie label became the business model for many to follow, signing solid bands and never forgetting their mission).

They were preceded by a few years by Joy Division, who had only enough time to crank out a single excellent album and record another before lead Ian Curtis killed himself. The remaining members continued to play together as New Order, but it was not the same writing, the same sound, the same band. Which is a shame, to say the least. Some of their stuff sounds dated to me now, but it would have been fun to see where the sonic road led them, and they arguably would have grown with, if not ahead of, the times.

On the other hand, Operation Ivy played excellent ska-punk for only a couple of years in the late '80s, putting out ~30 tunes that I still find infectious before calling it quits, but their sound captured a niche of the zeitgeist before it all changed. And I think the two who splintered off from Op Ivy made the right decision to follow the harder sound with Rancid.

No list of this sort would be complete without the requisite cases of tragic death.

Clifford Brown was a Jazz trumpeter extraordinaire, who died in '56 at age 25 (And not even from junk! He was a sober guy in the wrong car on the wrong night.) In particular, the work he did with Max Roach is nothing short of excellent. Clean, technically brilliant tone, but not overly so, still soulful. He recorded for only a few years, but his legacy has legs to this day, and his horn still sounds great.

I'm more a fan of Buddy Holly than Richie Valens, both of whom had short and epic careers before dying in the same plane crash (which also killed one-hit wonder The Big Bopper). Both showed huge promise and were hugely influential, synthesizing styles that came before them and luring in crossover audiences as they created new sounds.

Who knows what Richie Valens would have done with another year or two, but Buddy Holly certainly recorded enough high quality and successful tunes to justify greatest hits compilations.

Janis Joplin and Otis Redding both had soul to spare and one-of-a-kind voices.

Janis is a tough case, as she arguably could not have kept up her pace nor her voice for much longer. So, while she was taken from us much too young, as they tend to say, and though she had put together short bits of sobriety during her career, she was clearly on her way to becoming a sad lady who would shortly sound like a sequel of herself. But she dies before she got old, and so we're left with a catalog of pretty powerhouse stuff. Her "Down on Me" brings chills to my spine.

I can take or leave Otis's posthumous and bittersweet "Dock of the Bay," but his more rollicking tunes like "Shake" or Stax recordings like "Mr. Pitiful" are just total powerhouses. Back in the '80s, I had a cassette (literally, the first tape I ever wore out from overuse) with Jimi Hendrix's set from the Monterey Pop Festival on the A-side and Otis's set on the B-side. I was weened on Hendrix, he was on top of his game (this was the show where he sacrificed his guitar via fire during "Wild Thing"), and played a hell of a set. But Otis simply killed. He was breathless, energetic, and brilliant, and side B ("Shake," "Respect," "I’ve Been Loving You Too Long," "Satisfaction," "Try a Little Tenderness") of that cassette became scratchy and unlistenable before side A. I have missed it ever since.

Otis, Janis, Buddy, Clifford, Minor Threat — you are my top five. Thanks for the excellence. Godspeed.

I Don't Wanna Hear It — Minor Threat
Cherokee — Clifford Brown
Try a Little Tenderness — Otis Redding

Fame Club

Looking over the Facebook a while back, I checked out the page for my high school class, where there was a discussion titled: "Famous Alumni?"

The pickings were somewhat slim — this one's an orchestra conductor, that one's been on a reality TV show. But then came this delectable morsel of irony:

I'm somewhat famous...? My [redacted] political performance was on Public Access for 2 months (www.[redacted]), I'm a jewelry designer with thousands of people wearing my work, I speak at Body Mind Spirit Expos in the Spring and Fall, I've been a guest on 4 radio & public access TV shows, and next year I'll be www.[redacted]'s astrologer...My website is www.[redacted].

I was dying to point out I'm pretty certain the first rule of fame club is "You do not talk about fame club." But that would have been just as petty as high school, wouldn't it?

Second rule of fame club? "You DO NOT talk about fame club."

You do not talk about fame club because you do not need to talk about fame club. In fame club, others speak for you. (And I don't mean your publicist.)

Or at least that's the way it used to be before fame got all meta on us. In any case, it seems to me that real fame is when people pen songs about you. Songs in which your name alone can stand as the title. Songs by great bands that are good enough for amateur bloggers to choose their own top-ten lists from the myriad of famous person songs.

Four guys and six women. My top ten, in no particular order:

The Replacements — Alex Chilton
The Modern Lovers — Pablo Picasso
Dan Bern — Tiger Woods
Cowboy Mouth — Joe Strummer
Outkast — Rosa Parks
The Go-Betweens — Lee Remick
Human Sexual Response — Jackie Onassis
The New Bomb Turks — Veronica Lake
Joey Ramone — Maria Bartiromo
The Clash — Janie Jones

Song Memories

"I first met you at Modell's sister's high school graduation party. 1955. 'Ain't That a Shame' was playing as I walked in the door."
  —Shrevie (from the movie Diner)

Crazy what certain sense memories bring back. Smells are incredibly powerful for me — from that of my elementary school cafeteria pizza to burning wood and drying wool. But nothing beats music for wistful melancholy or outright glee.

• "Thunder Road" — Bruce Springsteen
  My dad gets the album Born to Run as a record club selection of the month. He normally returns these automatic selections instead of being billed for them. We're not suckers. But something about the cover grabs us and this one we keep, without knowing much about it. When the needle drops on the vinyl, "Thunder Road" happens.
  
  I don't entirely get the lyrics until I become a teenager, and I learn later that in fact I did not get them even then. But the urgency and lyrical nature of the music grabs me and forces me to feel. I listen to the song and the album within the confines of my parents' house, in a room we call the "den," on an old but clear mono speaker.
  
  It is arguably the greatest first song on any album ever recorded. The first two lines alone ("The screen door slams, Mary's dress sways / like a vision she dances across the porch as the radio plays") give me shivers to this day. And to this day, Born to Run is one of the few pieces of vinyl I have ever worn out.


• "I Can See Clearly Now" — Johnny Nash
  1984: I am in the middle of logging country in northern Maine (when I say northern Maine, I don't just mean north of Augusta, I mean north of Millinocket), canoeing the length of the remote, north-flowing Allagash. There's a campsite one night with a worn picnic table. On it sits a crackling AM radio, a deli loaf of sliced American cheese, and a head of iceberg lettuce. As I'm prepping dinner, I eat slice after slice of cheese wrapped in iceberg lettuce leaves. It is delicious. The song on the radio is "I Can See Clearly Now."
  
  After dinner, youth clouds my vision and I hop from one fallen tree trunk to the next, several feet above the river at the top of a high falls. I manage to not fall in — meaning, I survive — but I can see clearly how it's a bad idea even as I'm doing it.


• "Tuesday's Gone" — Lynyrd Skynyrd
  (The details are fuzzy, but the feeling is not.) First real slow dance. It feels like sex.


• "Bastards of the Young" — The Replacements
  I am in high school, on the bus to an away hockey game. It is night and I have the seat to myself. I look out the window and think about playing and about girls. Hockey smells like like this and feels like this.
  
  Physically, I am on the short side, and I don't keep my head up enough on the ice. Still, I like to hit and even to be hit. My focus isn't entirely there until I've been hit hard. In lieu of caffeine or Sudafed (or, this being the early-'80s, cocaine), I gear up listening to The Mats, loud.  By the time we pile into the cold rink, "Bastards of the Young" has me sufficiently, if not finely, tweaked.


• "Radio Free Europe" — R.E.M. / "In Between Days" — The Cure
  Fall 1986. I am in a horrible bar that I will return to every week for the remainder of the year. I am drinking cheap beer with Frank Sinatra's niece, dancing with hot, drunken women, and feeling the bass in my gut. There are seemingly only two songs played in this bar, and they are "Radio Free Europe" and "In Between Days."


• "Pale Shelter" — Tears for Fears
  It is my sophomore year in college. My grandmother has just died. I had been expecting the phone call, but still it is jarring. Once I hang up, I turn up my stereo. Partly out of affectation (I feel life is offering only pale shelter), partly out of affection and loss, I play the CD loud enough to be heard throughout the dorm. The next day, I drive home much, much too fast.


• "Up to Me" — Bob Dylan
  A lot of Dylan's songs tell a story. This song tells the story of a recent college graduate prone to melancholy, traveling alone through Europe by train and foot. This song speaks to me every single day, as I become a student of life, and I become the song.
  
  If pressed for a top ten list, this song remains at or near the top.


• "Ramblin' Man" — The Allman Brothers
  Post-college, post-midnight revelry. After beers with the boys, we hit a raucous diner for late-night breakfast. Kings of the world, we burst through the doors in perfect time with that crisp Dickie Betts guitar and I belt out the lyrics, strolling to our table.


• Living with the Law — Chris Whitley
  I am writing my graduate school thesis — a full-length play — in a cold house in Brighton, MA, during the fall of '94. Early on in the process, I decide on a few core CDs that will be my writing soundtrack. The play is about a dream Montana of the mind, and it demands a soundtrack; the language has a rhythm to it, a musical cadence that I need to keep in my head. I keep that cadence in my head with the twangy steel of Chris Whitley's stripped-down album Living with the Law, which to this day puts me in the mood to write.

The Replacements — Bastards of the Young
Bob Dylan — Up to Me
Chris Whitley — Big Sky Country

The Sound of Change

It's that time once again, where we get our vote on — and hopefully change the downward direction of this country. So let's do it. Early and often, and with songs of change playing loud.

In compiling a solid playlist, we'll need tunes from the following tried and true political musical genres:

The Man:

Sex Pistols — "God Save the Queen"

God bless the Sex Pistols. You can just about hear the spit and bile coming from Johnny Rotten's maw.

God save the queen
She ain't no human being
There is no future
In England's dreaming

Five Man Electrical Band — "Signs"

Sure, I could substitute Gil-Scott Heron's "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised," (which I do most definitely dig, brother) but it would be too predictable in that self-consciously hip sort of way. So I'll roll with a tune I used to love back when I was pissed off that I'd surely been born in the wrong decade — namely, this one-hit wonder's fantastic anti-ode to The Man.

And the sign said, "Long haired freaky people need not apply"
So I tucked my hair up under my hat and I went in to ask him why
He said, "You look like a fine upstanding young man, I think you'll do"
So I took off my hat, I said, "Imagine that- huh- me working for you..."

Billy Bragg — "It Says Here"

There are loads of other Billy Bragg songs to pick from, but I'm a big fan of this bare-bones critique of the press. The simplicity of the voice, electric guitar, and the message rocks.

Those braying voices on the right of the House
Are echoed down the Street of Shame
Where politics mix with bingo and tits
In a strictly money and numbers game
Where they offer you a feature on stockings and suspenders
Next to a call for stiffer penalties for sex offenders

Civil Rights:

Marvin Gaye — "Inner City Blues"

Make me wanna holler I wish Marvin was still hollering. The message never sounded so soulful.

Crime is increasing
Trigger happy policing
Panic is spreading
God know where we're heading
Oh, make me wanna holler
They don't understand

Sly and the Family Stone — "Don't Call Me Nigger, Whitey"

The name says it all. It took all of Sly and company's interracial funk kung fu to pull off these straightforward, confrontational lyrics (not to mention that wah-wah pedal) in this 1969 classic that surely made Richard Pryor proud.

Well I was down, across the country
And I heard two voices ring
They were talkin' angry to each other
And neither other could change a thing
Don't call me "nigger," whitey
Don't call me "whitey," nigger...

Public Enemy — "Fight the Power"

This tune plays like a Greek chorus (and to excellent effect) in Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing. Chuck D has the strongest and most authoritative voice in rap.

Elvis was a hero to most
But he never meant shit to me, you see
Straight up racist that sucker was
Simple and plain
Motheruck him and John Wayne
Cause I'm Black and I'm proud
I'm ready and hyped plus I'm amped
Most of my heroes don't appear on no stamps

War:

Stiff Little Fingers — "Wasted Life"

I first heard this song on an old mix tape. It got cut off after about a minute, but that minute of raw power introduced me to SLF and their outstanding brand of Belfast punk, and made me run out to buy the album.

I could be a soldier
Go out there and fight to save this land
Be a people's soldier
Paramilitary gun in hand
I won't be a soldier
I won't take no orders from no-one
Stuff their fucking armies
Killing isn't my idea of fun

U2 — "Sunday Bloody Sunday"

Another classic against The Troubles in Northern Ireland and about the Derry incident in particular.

Broken bottles under children's feet
Bodies strewn across the dead end street
But I wont heed the battle call
It puts my back up
Puts my back up against the wall

Bob Dylan — "Masters of War"

While most of these songs of protest type lists cite "Blowin' in the Wind," it's not anywhere close to my top 25 Dylan tunes. So for my money, I'll take one that is.

You that never done nothin'
But build to destroy
You play with my world
Like it's your little toy
You put a gun in my hand
And you hide from my eyes
And you turn and run farther
When the fast bullets fly

The Cult of Personality:

The Ramones — "My Brain is Hanging Upside Down (Bonzo Goes to Bitburg)"

Boy, that early-'80s 1–2 punch of Reagan and Thatcher did nearly as much to inspire great music as bad relationships. About Reagan's ill-advised 1985 trip to Bitburg cemetery — where several dozen SS troops are buried — this isn't the most rocking Ramones' tune, but it's arguably the one with the most soul driving it.

Shaking hands with your highness
See through you like cellophane
You watch the world complain, but you do it anyway
Who am I, am I to say...
Bonzo goes to Bitburg, then goes out for a cup of tea...

Dead Kennedys — "California Über Alles"

Great song despite the fact that the lyrics are a bit flawed, message-wise. Still, a campy, witty, anarchic, fantastic look at unchecked power from the far left.

I am Governor Jerry Brown
My aura smiles
And never frowns
Soon I will be president...
Carter Power will soon go away
I will be Fuhrer one day
I will command all of you
Your kids will meditate in school...

Eminem — "Mosh"

A bit of an odd pick for me. I'm not a huge fan of Eminem, but this is a particularly excellent rant against Bush the younger. I remember well when this video came out before the 2004 elections, and it looks as good and has as much power now as it did then.

Let the president answer a higher anarchy
Strap him with an AK-47, let him go, fight his own war
Let him impress daddy that way
No more blood for oil, we got our own battles to fight on our own soil
No more psychological warfare, to trick us to thinking that we ain't loyal
If we don't serve our own country, we're patronizing a hero
Look in his eyes its all lies
The stars and stripes, they've been swiped, washed out and wiped
And replaced with his own face....

Alright, which other tunes have I missed? Think on it while you listen.

Billy Bragg — It Says Here
Don't Call Me Nigger, Whitey — Sly & the Family Stone
Wasted Life — Stiff Little Fingers
Mosh — Eminem

How to Win Friends and Influence People

As summer rolls in, it's important we all brush up on the amateur musicianship that used to get us laid back in college.

You did play guitar in college, right?

Well, get the led out. Literally. Brain dump all those musty Led Zeppelin bits you learned back in high school. No one wants to hear your masterly picking on "Over the Hills and Far Away." There has only ever been one good use for Zeppelin (see Damone, Five-Point Plan), and even that is dated.

Alright. It's festival/backyard barbecue/family reunion season and you will be called upon to rally the troops, young and old. You'll need 45 minutes worth of tunes you can play and sing well. If you're lousy with lyrics, keep a sheaf of cheat sheets in your guitar case. The key is a varied repertoire in your vocal range, with no alternate tunings, and no more than a half-dozen chords.

Important!  Do not cater to children. Kids need to learn grown-up songs, not vice versa. Barney can go screw.

In compiling a solid playlist, you'll need at least one tune from the following dozen well-established musical genres:

Country: Let me be clear that I mean old-school country, not some nouveau radio-friendly crap sung by anyone remotely hot. The following are solid picks: Merle Haggard's "Mama Tried," Townes Van Zandt's "Pancho & Lefty," Jeff Walker's "I Feel Like Hank Williams Tonight," or the daddy of 'em all, Steve Goodman's David Allan Coe vehicle: "You Never Even Call Me By My Name." 

Folk: First, understand that folks were more patient for six- and seven-minute epics back in the coffee house days, but that dog don't hunt anymore. No one wants to hear you go prattling on about "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" or sit for all of "Tangled up in Blue," so keep it short. Dylan, John Prine, Gillian Welch, Josh Ritter, all fine choices.

Blues: You don't need to solo, but you do need to know your basic 12-bar 1-4-5. Rufus Thomas' "Walkin' the Dog" and Fats Domino's "I'm Walkin'" are brilliant tunes to get the house rocking.

Classic Rock: I've got a few, but (done well, mind you, not like this) nothing is easier or goes over better than AC/DC's "You Shook Me All Night Long." (But for god's sake, if you insist on playing Led Zeppelin, do something like "Tangerine," because if I hear "Stairway to Heaven" I will break your guitar like Belushi.)

Indie Rock: Easy crowd-pleasers for the post-punk slacker moms and dads. "The Concept" by Teenage Fanclub, "Tennessee" by the Silver Jews, and the Pixies' "Here Comes Your Man."

Punk: No party is complete without some well-timed punk. Black Flag's version of "Louie, Louie," The Clash's "Death or Glory," Cock Sparrer's "England Belongs to Me." With the proper venom and snarl, these'll make them cough up a deviled egg.

Oldies: Gotta have a couple the AARP crowd knows the words to. Ricky Nelson's "Hello Mary Lou," Johnny Rivers' "Secret Agent Man," Buddy Holly's "Well... All Right."

A Capella: I know. But trust me — it's critical. It's the musical equivalent of golf's sand wedge. You've gotta have it in your bag for those times when you break a string, or are too drunk to keep time, or have to prove you actually can sing, or when you're night fishing for great whites. In fact, sea shanteys work like a charm in most instances, and at these trying times, give a nod to Quint and go with either "Show Me the Way to Go Home" or "Spanish Ladies" (incidentally, an excellent lullaby for kids). Another rollicking, sea-faring song with some teeth (and a "goddamn them all" chorus) is Stan Rogers' great "Barrett's Privateers," which I learned over a campfire ages ago at the Philadelphia Folk Festival.

Bluegrass: You need at least one tune to play with a banjo- or fiddle-toting friend. And if you don't have any friends who tote said instruments, you need to take a hard look at who you're hanging out with. I can't do a lick of real fingerpicking, but I can comp chords, and tunes like Hank Williams' "Jambalaya" or the Stanley Brothers' "Man of Constant Sorrow" work well.

Johnny Cash: You're damn skippy JC's a genre unto himself, and you best know a handful. "Folsom Prison Blues," "Ring of Fire," and "Tennessee Stud" for starters.

Songs about trains: No self-respecting musical hack can have a train-free repertoire — and not just so they can satisfy my train-crazed 4-year-old nephew (who is already familiar with the rail-heavy catalogs of Hank Snow and Jimmie Rodgers). I know maybe a dozen, but in a pinch, I'll take REM's "Driver 8," Roger Miller's "King of the Road," and Leadbelly's "Rock Island Line."

Songs about drinking: Give someone their first listen to Sonny Boy Williamson's classic "Sloppy Drunk Blues," or try to do justice to The Pogues' "Streams of Whiskey." It has a built-in party chorus and still sounds hella good after many rounds. For plenty more help with this genre, fumble your way over to the brilliant and encyclopedic Barstool Mountain.

Now, beyond all that, you've got to have a single go-to song — something short that you can do in any key, for any occasion, and at a moment's notice. That song should be a genre-buster; hitting several at once. The little banjo ditty Newman does in Cool Hand Luke ("Plastic Jesus") is a great place to start.

Dust off those fingers, boys and girls. It's time to go make an ass of yourself.

Mama Tried — Merle Haggard
Hello Mary Lou — Ricky Nelson
Barrett's Privateers — Stan Rogers
Streams of Whiskey — The Pogues

Double Numbers

Growing up, I was a bit obsessed with the jersey numbers of my favorite sports stars. No, let me rephrase that. In fact, I was so obsessed with jersey numbers that I sometimes chose my favorite players based on those numbers.

Early-'80s Philadelphia Flyers Ron Flockhart (11) — whose chief attribute was his inability to actually score after skating by all five on-ice opponents — and terminal AHL call-up Tommy Gorence (22) were not exactly stars, yet I followed them with keen interest.

When Wayne Gretzky came along, I thought I'd found numeric gold. He was a slight guy, but that "99" really filled out the back of his jersey. He was joined by Mario Lemieux (66), Ray Bourque (77), and Eric Lindros (88), among others, all of whom helped to popularize the higher double numbers in hockey — and all of whom were great players.

I've still have a bit of a quirky fascination with numbers. I have a gut feeling about them. Some give me an intrinsically positive vibe, and others a negative one. In any case (before I paint myself as too much of a rain man), I've always liked double numbers. Something about the symmetrical look of them, all divisible by 11. I don't know. For me, it's always been about sports, not math, or some new age numerology.

Anyway, as mockumentarian Marty DiBergi said in This Is Spinal Tap, "Enough of my yapping." This is a music post. "Let's boogie."

Motion the Eleven — Cornershop
22 Steps — Andy Stochansky
33 RPM Soul — Michelle Shocked
Forty-Four Blues/How Many More Years — Little Feat
Ol' 55 — Tom Waits
(Get Your Kicks On) Route 66 — Nat King Cole
1977 — The Clash
Rocket 88 — Jackie Brenston & His Delta Cats
Johnny 99 — Bruce Springsteen

Joe Strummer

I first came to The Clash with the their London Calling double LP. I bought it on cassette, and once I listened to it, I was hooked. I was a disaffected suburban youth with unclear ideas as to what I was fed up with and how to channel that anger. The Clash gave me a voice. I was fuzzy on the politics — I didn't know Andalucia from my arse — but I would drive around in my beater Honda Civic, shifting from third gear to fourth without the clutch, and playing songs like "Spanish Bombs," "Death or Glory," and "Koka Kola" over and over again, singing the lyrics loud, with a sneer and a trace of accent.

Every gimmick hungry yob digging gold from rock 'n' roll
Grabs the mic to tell us he'll die before he's sold
But I believe in this, and it's been tested by research
That he who fucks nuns will later join the church

A few years later, playing and singing in college bands, it was Joe Strummer's cool I tried (in vain) to channel.

We all have our musical heroes, and Joe is one of my very few who has stood the test of time. I appreciate and like what he did at every stage of his career. I can't say that about many. He neither grew old and fat, nor burned out, nor faded away. He and his music simply matured and changed — and did so in ways that I suppose I wanted to emulate in my non-musical life. And he was making damn good music straight up until the day he died December 22, 2002 at age 50 from a congenital heart defect.

The Clash was mostly reggae meets punk, but that's only the tip of Joe's musical influences, which in turn — and even now — opened my ears to new beats, new sounds, new attitudes. From rockabilly to electronica, hip hop, and world beat, the guy just plain had good taste in music. The songs he covered make a hell of a lineup: from Junior Murvin ("Police and Thieves"), Toots & the Maytals ("Pressure Drop"), and The Rulers ("Wrong 'em Boyo") to The Equals ("Police on My Back") to Professor Longhair ("Junco Partner"), The Bobby Fuller Four ("I Fought the Law"), the list goes on.

And he in turn influenced countless worlds of musicians, whether they realized it or not, some of my favorites among them. From The Specials and Operation Ivy to Stiff Little Fingers and The Alarm, Rancid and Green Day to (arguably) Chuck D and KRS-1. Again, the list goes on and is impressive.

Joe, You challenged us — musically, politically, emotionally. Thank god you visited; your music and its legacy rocks on.

 

The 101'ers — Keys to Your Heart (1975)
The Clash — Jail Guitar Doors (1978)
Joe Strummer — Love Kills (1986)
Joe Strummer & The Latino Rockabilly War — Jewellers & Bums (1989)
The Pogues — Whiskey in the Jar (1993; Joe as producer)
Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros — X-Ray Style (1999)
Joe guest DJ'ing on Hova's WFMU show (2001)
Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros — Coma Girl (2003)

Cowboy Mouth — Joe Strummer
Billy Childish — Joe Strummer's Grave
Stiff Little Fingers — Strummerville

Best. Concert. Ever.

The first concert I ever went to was to see The Kinks at the Philadelphia Spectrum, back in 1982. It was on their Give the People What They Want tour. Great show — but then again, I had little else to compare it to. It was undoubtedly an excellent show, but I've since seen others as good.

I think of myself as having very wide-ranging musical tastes, mostly rooted in alternative music (before "alternative" became mainstream fare), but with the exception of The Goats, this list of my top five shows seems incredibly mainstream. A longer list would require far too much rooting around my college-era memory cache — though offhand it would include folks like Superchunk, The Muffs, The Pogues, Billy Bragg, along with jazz cats Christian McBride and Brian Blade, Senegalese star Baaba Maal. I'd have to throw in a Dead Milkmen show. Maybe even Stevie Ray Vaughn a few weeks before he died. It'd start getting complicated.

That said, my top five, in sequential order only:

Bruce Springsteen — The Spectrum, Philadelphia, PA — September 1984
This was on the Born in the USA tour. Granted, a hair past late-'70s vintage, but the E Street Band was arguably at the height of its polish, and it's a tough show to beat. He came onstage right on time, no opening act, and played four hours straight, no breaks.

U2 — The Spectrum, Philadelphia, PA — April 1985
On the Unforgettable Fire tour. At some point, a fan tossed an Irish flag up on stage. Bono took it, he tore off the green section, ran to one side of the stage and threw it to the crowd. He then tore off the orange section, ran to the other side of the stage and threw it to the crowd. He was left with only the white section, which he held high and proclaimed to be the only flag that matters. Then, if memory serves, he blew his nose in it and sent that into the crowd as well. Bono had quite the mullet then, and his politics perhaps weren't quite as refined as they are now. In any case, excellent show. Again, I'd have loved to have seen them a few years before that, but I'm glad I got a chance to see them before their shows became bloated Rolling-Stones-like events.

Pearl Jam (w/Keith Richards) —  The Academy, NYC — December 31, 1992
This was a zeitgeist show. It was new year's eve, and my agent friend Ken scored us free tix. Pearl Jam opened this show for Keith Richards and the Inexpensive Winos, playing a tight hourlong set. Their first album was out, and the video for "Jeremy" had just blown up on MTV, so the audience was primed. We had actual seats upstairs, but as Pearl Jam came on, I handed my glasses, wallet, and flask (it was new year's, baby!) to my friends, and headed downstairs to the middle of the general admission mosh pit. It wasn't the Sex Pistols, or even Minor Threat, but I distinctly remember waking up the next morning and putting on my fairly new black Carolina steel toes. They were absolutely caked with the detritus of the pit: layers of sweat, beer, spit, snot, and blood.

The Goats — The Middle East, Cambridge, MA — September (?) 1993
One of the first shows I saw after I moved to Boston, and I went solo. Figures it would be a hometown Philly act. Another zeitgeist show. The Goats were an outstanding band that really captured the vibe of the early '90s. They were rappers with a punk rock aesthetic; a political conscience; incredibly dense, internally-rhymed lyrics; and great musical chops. The upstairs room at the Middle East is a weird space that was jammed with sweating fans. The energy was palpable and they did not disappoint. Years later, talking with Pierce and E.J. (guitar and bass, respectively), they told me they had always agreed that Middle East show was maybe The Goats' best ever.

Sonny Rollins — Berklee Performance Center, Boston, MA — September 15, 2001
Again, this one had a lot to do with timing. When I bought the tickets to this show for AKL's birthday, I could not have known its significance. I'd seen Sonny once before (also an excellent show), but this was to be a tonic for both audience and performers alike. It was just four days after the 9/11 attacks. Sonny had been at his apartment a few blocks from ground zero when the towers came down, and this was his first gig since. He spoke very little, but played for well over three hours, and blew the horn like a man half his age. It was at once a funeral, a therapy session, and a giant and heartfelt "fuck you" to the terrorists, and it felt great. P.S. An abridged (and in fact, bootlegged) recording of this show was later released (and won a Grammy).

Lemme know your top 5 in the comments. Have a think while you're listening:

Bruce Springsteen — "Candy's Room"
U2 — "Gloria"
Pearl Jam — "Corduroy"
The Goats — "¿Do the Digs Dug?"
Sonny Rollins — "Why Was I Born?"