The Rest of the 25 Albums, Or So, that Shaped My So-Called Life

#2, George Carlin, Class Clown
Class clown that I am, I'm going to do 27 albums--25 music, 2 comedy. I can't begin to say how influential this disc was, and not just for the dirty words. But yes, for the words. He made language so fun, so funny. He made context so clear. He made fun of going to Catholic school. I owe Carlin a ton, as do many un-normals in my generation, I'd guess.

#3, Jackson Browne, The Pretender
Yes, alas, I was a California "rocker" years before coming to CA. Or, as I like to see it, Browne was my first stop in the world of what I call pity pop (future stops, Ian Hunter, Billy Bragg's love songs), for I love music that's a wallow. Goddam I'm misunderstood. And I started out so young and strong, only to surrender. (Of course this moved me at 15, please....)

#4, Woody Allen, Standup Comic
Here's where I get to be witty and urbane, while actually being shitty and surbuban(e). And if you can have a sense of humor that rests between classic Allen and classic Carlin, that's me.

#5, Peter Gabriel, untitled (3)
On a road trip to the Jersey shore with my Jersey friends on the Jersey Turnpike I was told I had to turn this off as it was too weird. And that's when I learned something bout meself, as they say. Plus, after our house got hit by a car (true story) and there was the as-yet un-repaired hole from basement to living room, I was sure something would rise out of the basement as I listened to "Intruder" on headphones. Oh, and "Biko" started helping lefty me think outside the U.S. box.

#6, Rocky Horror Picture Show soundtrack
Have I ever fessed up to this? That I had a huge Rocky Horror phase? Don't dream it, be it. Half the fun was trying to come up with lines to shout out at screenings that people would laugh at. But given I wasn't getting anything at the time (high school), the idea that anything could be got seemed fascinating.

#7, The Clash, London Calling
Bought it in New York City, at a Sam Goodys on Sixth Avenue for $5.99. A double lp. And then I realized there was so much more to music, as there was so much to that album. The guys in that car for PG3 had no idea where my taste would lead me.

#8, Ian Hunter, Welcome to the Club
Great music and the beginning of some sense of history (perhaps Mott should be on the list, too). One of the albums of my high school graduation, and then I also had a fixation with pity pop classic "Irene Wilde" ("I'm going to be somebody someday" is the refrain the jilted lover clings to). And then it played in my freshman year dorm room, a woman in the room realized it moved me (my god, how did I look--what did I do?), but eventually she'd pop my cherry. So Ian Hunter's been very very good to me. Welcome to the club indeed.

#9, Roxy Music, Siren
I came to this record well after its release, but it provided me with much release through college. For it goes like this--you played side 1 on your way out the door for an evening, knowing that love was the drug and you needed to score. Then you came home, alone, sublimated with food from the snack bar, and listened to side 2, which ended reminding you love was just another high. Plus Paul Thompson's work on that last song is one of the best songs ever to air drum to.

#10, Lou Reed, Rock and Roll Diary 1967-1980
This sort of odd compilation of Lou and Velvets cuts was my real intro to that whole world, and so I owe it much gratitude. Plus it had liner notes by Ellen Willis so introduced me to her, too. (Can an album rock your world for its liner notes?)

#11, Bill Nelson, The Love that Whirls (Diary of a Thinking Heart)
Hyper-realized romance while in college made me very happy, and so, Mr. Nelson. That echo-ey, aching e-bow guitar. Plus he's sort of a bridge from Roxy Music to all the Japanese electro pop of that era, too--Yellow Magic Orchestra and its three guys' solos efforts.

#12, XTC, English Settlement
Can't begin to describe how much I was into XTC back in the day, although that's really faded (and that's kind of sad). My radio show through undergrad and grad school (81-88) was called "This Is Pop?" even. But this double album--of course I had the import, it was the age of being a geeky "get the import" guy--defined that era. Plus "All of a Sudden" is actually a pity pop gem, too.

#13, Elvis Costello Imperial Bedroom
Helped me bridge then current music with the songs my then-roommate jazzbo, Sinatra head liked. Even Chet Baker covered "Almost Blue." Catchy tunes, witty wordplay, and plenty of pity pop.

#14, Kate Bush, Hounds of Love
Aboundingly creative, this album. And while her videos are always pitched near hysteria ("Breathing" is the worst), the drama of these songs was very appealing. Plus she put out great B-sides on 12" singles in an era when I bought all the 12" singles. So this is here as an emblem of that, too.

#15, Billy Bragg, Talking to the Taxman about Poetry
I wrote poetry, then, and figured I'd never have nothing to talk to a taxman about. But it was darn fun being a writer. Plus "Levi Stubbs' Tears" is still one of my favorite songs and that's why this disc just edges out Workers' Playtime, but maybe they should be a twofer.

#16, The Mekons, Mekons Rock 'n' Roll
How can an album that opens with the lines "Destroy your safe and happy lives before it is too late," not wake one up? Especially when the violin rocks as hard as the guitars? And then there's secret weapon Sally Timms....

#17, The Pooh Sticks, Multiple Orgasm
I've gone on and on about my Multiple Orgasm on the blog, but perhaps I didn't say that this tape (for years I only had a dubbed copy) got played at every party I went to in 1991. And every time someone asked, "What’s that?"

#18, Pavement, Slanted and Enchanted
It might not be my fave Pavement, but it was quite an introduction to a band that still holds sway over my musical taste. Weird angles of lyrics and song all combine to make right. Plus this got played all year 1992.

#19, Uncle Tupelo, Anondyne
What incredible songs! Plus Tweedy finally got as good as Farrar, and that was very exciting--so much so the band had to fold.

#20, Yam, More Iowa, Less Worcester
This is the full length, cassette-only release by the band I was in 1993-94. Given it features the only songs I can play on an instrument, it's very important to me. Everyone should be in a band at least once in his or her life. You get free beer and can shout at people with a microphone to help you.

#21, Beck, Odelay!
This album seemed to be CA to me once I moved here, a wild and woolly mix. It should be paired with Los Lobos' Colossal Head, which came out the same year and also seemed to say "Welcome to CA." (Indeed, after moving here I finally could go back and get X, like I needed to live near LA to make sense of it.)

#22, Yo La Tengo, I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One
The album of the year of our wedding (yes, say awwww), 1997. I remember meeting with our very nice cover band folks before the reception and they asked what we wanted them to play beyond our instruction to get people to dance. They queried, "What's your favorite song right now?" And I thought, but didn't say, "Autumn Sweater," which would have been a weird wedding song indeed.

#23, The Magnetic Fields, 69 Love Songs
An incredible achievement. As with YLT, I'd been a big fan before this album that made the list, but with 69 I remember actually running to the computer and emailing friends six songs in, telling them they had to run out and buy this incredible record. Plus I actually presented an academic paper on the record, too.

#24, Fountains of Wayne, Welcome Interstate Managers
I like to recognize those who get by on clever, which for pop is enough. (So I guess I need to be pop.) But there's more to this than people want to give it credit for--really listen to "Valley Winter Song," say. Another good times album for its year.

#25, Neko Case, Fox Confessor Brings the Flood
Flat-out gorgeous. And I mean her singing, btw. Plus there's "Maybe Sparrow," a song that's ending almost always brought me to tears even before I somehow connected it to my mom passing away, so there's all that for the poor little bird to bear.

#26, Shout Out Louds, Our Ill Wills
My mom gets Neko, my dad this album. I actually bought it in NJ when back for his funeral. So it's far from sad in its music, but it's totally sad in my head. So really powerful. Plus there is a dark side to it, so that just gets deeper.

#27, Los Campesinos!, Hold On Now, Youngster
Given I just learned they canceled their upcoming Santa Barbara show, I sort of want to kick them off the list. But no CD in the past few years gets me going like this one--it's what Red Bull is supposed to be, but without the gross taste. Insta-adrenalin. And too darn smart, too.

We've Only Just Blog-un

I feel stuck between stations. Now that I'm a mad-FBer, there's the blog, and there's FB, and there's endless internets calls for my attention, as if I don't actually have, oh, jobs to do or a life to live ("hi, Amy, hi, dogs--I'm computing!") or something. But Mike from Mike's Neighborhood tagged me with this music meme on FB and I really want to do it, but, of course, I made it complicated.

Here's the original instructions: "Think of 25 albums, CDs, LPs (if you're over 40) that had such a profound effect on you they changed your life. Dug into your soul. Music that brought you to life when you heard it. Royally affected you, kicked you in the ass, literally socked you in the gut, is what I mean. Then when you finish, tag a bunch of others, including me. Make sure you copy and paste this part so they know the drill. Get the idea now? Good. Tag, you're it!"

So I made my list, but realized a naked list wouldn't do justice to why these albums did what they did to me. This is far from a list of my favorite albums, as it's about records that define a time, that were wrapped up in my me-ness for at the minimum a few months. So I put them in chrono order, as they're sort of an autobiography, in one way, (25 Short Albums about GY?), and realized the first one (it is actually the first album I can remember owning) would take the most explanation. Luckily I already wrote that explanation, so I'm going to quote myself from a review for the cover album If I Were a Carpenter that I wrote back in 1995, as so many writers are moved by their own hands.

Album 1: Carpenters, Singles, 1969-1973

Never mind the Sex Pistols, here's the Carpenters. At least that's how the 1970s look, really look. C'mon, how many of us were hip enough to be gobbed on and gob back in 1976-77? They don't call it Generation Sex, after all.

But the Carpenters were all the 1970s were.

Stop and think about that, because much of what the 70s were about was not thinking. I'm unlucky enough to have my own personal rhyme for this--my parents got divorced, first on our block to do so. Playing music on my crappy white plastic stereo meant turning away from the house, the world. So sure as hell, rainy days and Mondays always got me down. Most of the rest of the week, too.

The Carpenters were hitmakers because they flatlined emotion. "Top of the World" exists in the same bright affectless vocal bubble as "Hurting Each Other," only the secondhand Phil Spector swells of strings hint at feeling. These songs make every up, down, fantasy, fuckup seem midtempo okey-dokey decent, just as Karen and Richard were smiling siblings, not lusty or squabbling lovers, just as Karen and Richard were average-looking and so unsexy that they seemed advertisements for a spay and neuter clinic. But the songs, so simple, so definitional. They got played at wedding because they were as staid and safe as church. They denied, Watergate, Vietnam, sure, but also that your seventh grade groin might ache for Ellen Sombers, that your dad didn't sing when he left the house for good. The songs had all the surprise of Hallmark, all the off-the-rack wisdom. It's no surprise, then, that Karen Carpenter faded away; she finally (dis-)embodied the nothing she was. But being nothing can be everything. At least a decade.

Portrait of the Blogger as a Young Dork

Ben Varkentine (at his blog Dancing Girls that's all about female appreciation) tagged me and while I've been squeamish about memes of late, this one has to do with photos, so what the heck. Of course there are rules:

1. Go to the 4th folder in your computer where you store your pictures.
2. Pick the 4th picture in that folder.
3. Explain the picture.
4. Tag 4 people to do the same!
5. This has to be your fourth post of the day. (OK, I made that one up.)

I'll pass on the 4th rule, as I gave up tagging as a New Year's resolution. But feel free to play at home as long as you have your parental permission slips signed. Which is more than fitting for this photo:

Guess who that pipsqueak is. My guess is this is about 1969.

Memed Myself I

Ben at a dragon dancing with the Buddha memed me. Genrally I bitch and moan, but I'll just suck it up and do it for a change.

Here are the rules:
A) The rules of the game get posted at the beginning.
B) Each player answers the questions about himself or herself.
C) At the end of the post, the player then tags five people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog.

1) Ten years ago I was...

Ten years younger, but now that I'm ten years older I can't say for certain if my back hurt less then. I was enjoying just the first of my years of marriage with the wonderful Amy. Mookie was just a pup, so we did pup-loving things. Like bought a new, not chewed up couch. I was still teaching writing at the time but was writing for the Independent in a different incarnation as an arts feature writer covering things from David Sedaris to Mose Allison. I had a website for teaching that was a mini-proto-blog. I did not get rich from this.

2) Five things on today's to-do list:

Bring dinner to friends who recently had a baby.
Divvy up our wine futures for the cartel I front.
Go to work and not be consumed by the ever-needy website.
Watch the Mets stink playing the Dodgers.
Wash some dishes (this is on every day's to-do list).

3) Things I'd do if I were a billionaire:

Wake up from fainting after learning I was a billionaire.
Hire someone to download my vinyl into digital because I'm clearly never getting around to doing it despite buying that USB turntable, and that's even before the billion to worry about.
Set up a foundation to fund lefty stuff and make George Soros look like a piker.
Make sure a big part of that is funding some smart science folks so we might get alternative energy that works. That alternative energy is lefty stuff is something I would try to fix with my billion.
Make a reservation for whenever at the French Laundry.
There is the possibility I might buy some wine.

4) Three bad habits:

Buying too much wine. (Note I did not say drinking too much wine.)
Overusing the dash and parentheses.
Crunchy Cheetos on long car drives.

5) Five places I've lived:

East Hanover, NJ, Baltimore, MD, Iowa City, IA, State College, PA, Santa Barbara, CA (glad you didn't ask for more than 5--but the count of addresses in each locale, in order, is 1, 2, 2, 6, 4)(damn--did the parentheses and dash thing!)

6) Six jobs I've had in my life:

These are in my profile, actually: "A body guard for Jodie Foster, a walk-on dancer with French avant garde troupe Maguy Marin, a film programmer, a textbook author, a bassist in a rock band, a union president, a janitor, a delivery man to Plato's Retreat, a radio DJ, a rock journalist, a lab assistant for a company that made everything from mouthwash to super skin lubricant, and even, once, a poet." That leaves out food editor, teacher, marketing-publicity-communications maven. Got paid, at least something, for every one of those jobs except the body guard gig and the poetry. Nobody pays for that.

And, since I did this so non-grumbly-like, I am tagging 5 people to pass along the love. So, Amy, Queen Whackamole, Patrick, Tessitura, and Mike, you've been served by a sub-meme-peona.