Alternate Universe Father's Day

Happy Father's Day.

I'm a father in several alternate universes, but not in this one.

Then again, there are alternate universes where Bolton (the English city) is world famous and Michael Bolton runs a small auto-supply business in Chicago.

When I was in college, I fell in love with someone who was totally and completely wrong for me. She dumped me over an argument about the relative merits of Michael Bolton and the Buzzcocks (but in retrospect there may have been other issues as well).

The first time around, the Buzzcocks (led by Pete Shelley and Howard Devoto) released a series of amazing records that combined the ferocious energy of punk with a strong sense of melody (and were collected in the great Singles Going Steady collection).

I should have known that my college romance was doomed when we fought about the Buzzcocks' crowning glory, "Ever Fallen In Love with Someone." She felt that Pete Shelley's vocals were unlistenable and ignored everything else. Over the course of 30 years and multiple breakups and reunions, Shelley's singing certainly got better. At the same time -- as you can see from this 2006 Craig Ferguson appearance -- the band's full-frontal attack and the inherent power of the song never went away. (Unlike the ex-girlfriend, whom I haven't spoken to in an eternity that still doesn't seem long enough.)


I thought of this ex recently when I saw a sappy TV report on Father's Day which featured an aggressively sappy and over-the-top Michael Bolton song. She probably loved it and probably sang along with her wimpy husband and their daughter.

Meanwhile, in a different alternate universe where I'm a father (with a much more suitable woman), my son asks me how you know when you're in love. And the only possible answer is this:


(By the way, I read this post to my cat, who says some people should only be parents in alternate universes... or are better suited to raising pets than children. He then demanded salmon and lobster wet food and meowed a gorgeous harmony vocal.)

Straddling the Fine Line Between Cool and Stupid

It's Not Often That Words Fail Me.

But this is one of those times (h/t to One Poor Correspondent).

Just watch this.


Yeah, that's Ringo Starr looking horrible in an unkempt beard and dorky glasses. And, yeah, the girl is a pre-Princess Leia Carrie Fisher. And, yes, that's Sir Paul McCartney playing kazoo.

My only explanation: The 70s were a lot weirder than anyone thought.

The Singer, Not the Industrial Solvent

Laser beams and invisible shields.

If I were an alien visiting from another planet (which, according to some of my friends, isn't that far from the truth), I'd think that "Exene" was an industrial solvent, maybe something that was added to the band X as part of an elaborate and messy industrial process whose end result was impassioned music.

That might not be entirely wrong.

My first exposure to seminal punk band X was when my friend Mason played me their 400-mile-per-hour cover of "Soul Kitchen" (originally by the Doors). I was hooked on the energy and on the bizarre back-and-forth vocals. And then there was Billy Zoom, whose unmoving stance on stage was a stark contrast to the machine-gun pace of the music. (And what's not to love about a punk band whose drummer is named "D.J. Bonebrake"?)

And the cool factor of two married co-lead-vocalists singing these songs as if their lives depended on it was matched only by the cool factor of two divorced co-lead-vocalists singing these songs as if our lives depended on it.

X on David Letterman in the 1980s:


Two weeks ago, Exene Cervenka, co-lead-singer of X, announced that she has Multiple Sclerosis.

Exene's bandmate and ex-husband John Doe told Spinner "She's great. There's a lot of people that live with this. We take care of our own. She realizes that this is another challenge. She's got a lot of support and it's all good. We'll take good care of Exene, don't worry."

Here's wishing her the best going forward.

The quote at the top of this post comes from "Leave Heaven Alone" -- from Exene's fantastic, quieter, and more introspective 1989 album Old Wive's Tales.

(And, just in case you're wondering: record company employees get healthcare benefits that are heavily subsidized by the company. Artists and musicians -- who provide the music that have benefited those record companies for decade after decade -- do not.)

Here Comes the Kónguló

Is he strong? Listen, bud: He's got radioactive blood.

When I was in first grade, we took a class trip to a nature preserve. The next day, our class wrote up a booklet about the trip and our teacher mimeographed it and we all took it home. (Although, in retrospect, it's more likely that we all talked about the trip and our teacher wrote up the booklet.)

I don't remember much about the trip (or first grade in general), but I do remember a long discussion in the booklet about how some people could see thin threads from the spiders in the trees. I was one of the ones who saw nothing. But I knew the theme to Spiderman by heart.

In my mind, the people who could see the spiderwebs somehow had a window into another world -- and perhaps that other world was magical and amazing in ways I could only imagine. When I finally could see the spiderwebs, I was disappointed that they brought me to no new worlds and offered little that was magical or amazing. For that, I'd have to turn to music.

Because in rock 'n' roll, any freak can be a superhero.


Things are a little different in Iceland, where the Icelandic Spiderman seems a wee bit incompetent (hat tip to the I Heart Icelandic Music blog):



Bonus 1: Three Danish teens scat Spiderman:


Bonus 2: the original cartoon theme:

Blog Post

My friend Jennifer held a party every year to celebrate Johnny Rotten's birthday.

It's not Johnny Rotten's birthday today (that was back on January 31st), but it is Jennifer's birthday -- so please celebrate it as you see fit. For me, it's more of a generic celebration.


After the Sex Pistols imploded, billionaire Richard Branson decided to cash in on Johnny Rotten (who bucked the marketing program and went back to his given name: John Lydon).

This was long before Branson was knighted (in 1999 for "services to entrepreneurship"), back when Branson ran Virgin records (first as a string of record stores -- later to be known as Mega Virginstores which, oddly enough, sold no virgins -- and then as an actual record label).

It was years before Branson's Virgin Records would lead to a long-simmering feud with XTC that caused the band to go on strike for six years (a strike that may have been more effective if anyone had known about it at the time).

And it was almost a lifetime before Branson would douse Stephen Colbert for insufficient zeal in promoting Branson's airline.

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In 1978, Branson thought Lydon's post-Sex Pistols band would be huge, if he could find the right musicians. So Branson flew Lydon to Jamaica and they spent weeks scouting local reggae players. Branson then flew Devo to Jamaica and tried to convince them to bring in Lydon as their new lead singer (they declined, although I still salivate at the thought of Johnny Rotten singing "Whip It").

What finally emerged from the ganja smoke was Public Image Ltd., where Lydon chanted (rather than shouting or really singing) over dub/reggae music. They edged away from the avant garde and closer to traditional songs and song structure over the next four records. Meanwhile, in the United States, there was a craze for "generic" brand products (sold in white packages with a distinctive blue typeface that had the type of product, such as "Beer" or "Breakfast Cereal").

By 1986, PiL had become a fairly standard rock band (albeit one with an off-kilter sound). As the music became more mainstream and commercial, it also became less distinct; maybe this was the type of meta-joke that let Lydon laugh all the way to the bank. The band parted ways with Virgin and Branson, signing to Elektra. Ginger Baker and Steve Vai (whom Johnny Rotten would have spit on a decade earlier) played on the new album, the generically titled Album (which was also known, depending on the format as Cassette or Compact Disc), with its single "Rise" (released as a 45 with a sleeve that just said "Single"). And even when Lydon proclaimed "anger is an energy," it came across less as a snarl and more as a tired grumble.

And, because it was 1986, it was inevitable that there would be a video (and perhaps unavoidable that it would be marked by the simple title "Video"):


It was ironic that Baker, drummer for Cream, one of the groups Johnny Rotten labeled as dinosaurs, participated... especially after Lydon, years earlier, made an April Fool's joke of announcing that Baker was joining Public Image Ltd. But the bigger irony was that, by completely subsuming music to product, Lydon obscured the fact that he had finally created something that could stand as music (and not just as attitude dressed up in musical clothing).

Happy Half-Birthday!

Or Maybe Half-Happy Birthday!

This blog launched 6 months ago with a post explaining the difference between collectors and music lovers (complete with video from High Fidelity. (To celebrate tonight, I'm wearing a half a birthday hat and half-blowing through a half-decent noisemaker!)

This was followed by posts on:

• Blotto (The 34th Most Important Band in the World, the most viewed page on this site),


• The Smithereens (Codependency's Greatest Hits),


• Darlene Love (Sacraments in the Church of Rock 'n' Roll),


• XTC (Thanks for Christmas),


• Why those UPS ads drive me up the wall(the Musical Definition of Irony),


• and the Del Fuegos (We Didn't Start the Del Fuegos, which contains my favorite comments of any that have appeared here).

So to celebrate, check out those early posts (or any of the others in the archives on the left side of the screen.

And welcome (or welcome back) to all the readers from all over the world (although none yet from Wyoming or Tennessee). And whatever I did to piss off the people in the island nation of Mauritius (who dropped in once and then never returned), I'm sure I didn't mean it!

And the four people from Homeland Security who visited after I mentioned the TSA, I'm guessing this post will finally bring you back.

Also, I should mention that there are 12 terms that return only this blog when you Google them.

And, as 120 people know, Clicks and Pops can be experienced on your iPhone!

Surrealistic Pillows (Watching They Might Be Giants Watch Themselves)

Doc will solo!

So I'm sitting with John and John from They Might Be Giants. They're watching themselves on TV and sitting on my crappy $20 couch near the one window with an ocean view. (My ex-girlfriend recently claimed the couch had fleas, but I'm pretty sure you only got fleas with the $10 couches).

I'd been a They Might Be Giants fan going back to Don't Let's Start and thought their smart-ass geek-rock (with accordian) was often perfect. Plus, they name-checked the dBs and the Young Fresh Fellows on their new album (and had written a song about James K. Polk), so their bona fides were well established in my book.

The Johns had been plugging that TV appearance for weeks ("and Doc will solo!" they'd proclaim). This was before they had a real band -- it was just John singing and playing guitar and John singing and playing accordian live to prerecorded backing tracks (bass, drums, etc.). And every night my ex-girlfriend's uber-cool brother would control those backing tracks; "it's like remixing an album live every night," he said.

Now, I'm sure it was much cheaper not to bring a band on the road (plus, it was weird and quirky, just like They Might Be Giants). But obviously they wanted a real band and the freedom that would bring to change tempos and not limit their performances to preset times and rhythms.

That afternoon, they were in Burbank in front of hundreds of cheering fans and gushing guest-host Jay Leno. (I was at my crappy day job being cheered by no one.) But by 11:30 at night, they were in my small apartment on the beach on my crappy $20 couch (with or without the fleas) watching themselves on TV. I glanced at it, but mostly I watched them watch themselves. It was surreal -- and they gripped our couch pillows (which may have cost more than the couch, come to think of it) in horror. I think they'd been on TV before, but nothing on the scale of The Tonight Show.

After, they had absurd crticisms about their perceived physical flaws ("my forehead is enormous!") which no one else noticed.

Watching that performance now, it's clear they kicked ass that night (as they did most nights). And, as promised, Doc did solo. (Link for Gmail subscribers.)


But I wondered if, in their minds that night on the couch, what they saw looked more like this. (And which of the Johns was the fez-wearing shark?)