Genius is Pain

No one listens on the left of the dial in the middle of the night.

So if you happened to play something that used profanity, chances are no one would notice. Or so went the reasoning of the soon-to-be-dismissed DJ on one of the eight college radio stations I could pick up in Junior High School.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Although it may be hard to believe these days, Rolling Stone magazine and the National Lampoon were once serious cultural touchstones (and considered "dangerously subversive" by mainstream society and the media).

But let me back up further.

The 60s ended with a series of enormous events, any one of which would be enough to set off pop-cultural earthquakes: astronauts walked on the moon (or on a soundstage in Arizona, depending on what you believe), Woodstock brought half a million people to a farm to listen to music in the mud, Ted Kennedy drove off a bridge into shallow water at Chappaquidick Island (simultaneously killing a female campaign worker and his chance to ever become President), Monty Python's Flying Circus premiered on British television, and the Rolling Stones hired the Hell's Angels as security for a free concert (where the Angels killed a stoned Black guy with a gun who may have been trying to make Mick Jagger's fantasy of being assassinated while onstage come true).

And also the Beatles had kind of broken up, but were keeping that fact under wraps until they could finish the Let it Be album with Phil Spector.

Paul McCartney finally spilled the beans a week before his first solo album came out when he issued an "interview" (conducted by and with himself) where he declared that the Beatles had broken up. John Lennon, who wanted to announce the breakup himself months earlier but had been talked out of it by Paul, was pissed.

Lennon and Yoko Ono went to Los Angeles and underwent "primal scream therapy" with Arthur Janov. Lennon was encouraged by the sessions to confront his past traumas and he channelled some of that energy into his first real solo album John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, a record of stark, powerful, confessional songs unlike anything that came before (or has come since).

Lennon also gave a sprawling interview to Jann Wenner of Rolling Stone where, over the course of nearly three hours, he put down George Harrison, called Paul's album "rubbish," insulted Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones, and talked openly and candidly about his past and his talent. The interview took the happy mop-top Beatles image (and even the hippy-dippy, peace-and-love psychedelia of the Beatles' later years) and tore it apart. Lennon's words are shocking in their honesty and sometimes make him seem like a huge jerk. You can hear the entire interview (unedited except for boosting Wenner's off-mike questions) here.

Around the same time, Harvard grads from the Harvard Lampoon humor magazine launched the National Lampoon. The Lampoon immediately hit a chord with the counterculture, who were desperate for comedy that spoke to them (unlike the sanitized comedy on American television, which seemed permanently stuck in the early 1950s). Sex, music, war, protest, and drugs were all fair game for the Lampoon, which took particular delight in satirizing rock stars (in all their glorious excesses).

The National Lampoon magazine led to off-Broadway reviews, a radio show, and a handful of records featuring writers and performers like Tony Hendra, Melissa Manchester, John Belushi, Michael O'Donoghue, and Christopher Guest. The first and best of the records was National Lampoon's Radio Dinner (which has now been out of print for a shamefully long time).

All of which brings me back to Junior High. Years after the Beatles broke up (and years after Radio Dinner came out), I was listening to a college radio station late at night when the DJ decided to play a National Lampoon song that I've thought for years was called "Genius is Pain." The real title is "Magical Misery Tour" (and most of the lyrics are taken from Lennon's own words in his Rolling Stone interview).

Although I wasn't familiar with all the references, I recognized instantly how biting and funny and sad this was (and how much it must have meant to fans of the magazine, who had to be completely torn up over the Beatles breaking up).

So from that night in Junior High until today, I remembered that National Lampoon parody but had never heard it again. My used-record store searches were doomed because I was searching for the wrong song title (and probably just glossed over the title "Magical Misery Tour"). But now, thanks to the YouTube, here it is (in all it's very NSFW glory and with my added warning not to play it around young children).


Later, I learned that the DJ was kicked off the air -- not for playing a record filled with dozens of profanities (that part, apparently was fine), but because the program director didn't think the song was funny. (To be fair, the program director also didn't like Monty Python, the Rutles, and the best of early Saturday Night Live, so his judgment definitely should not be trusted.)

Kongulo Kab

The Internet Was Made For Stuff Like This.

No, not porn.

Two years ago, Hidden Fruit (Gen Stevens and Chris Pattinson) and Just So Films (Jonny Madderson and Will Evans) came up with an idea that would either be completely brilliant or totally stupid. Hire a London cab, put famous musicians in the back seat and film them performing one song in one take with no editing and no overdubs.

This isn't an idea that can sustain for 60 or 90 minutes, but it makes a perfect 3-5 minute diversion. Ideal for the Internet.

There have now been more than 90 of these Black Cab Sessions (their slogan: One Song, One Take, One Cab), most great examples of the wonderful results you can get from a good idea and a budget in the high single digits. The series trends heavily towards indie rockers (Death Cab for Cutie, the New Pornographers, Okkervil River) but also features some old school rock stars (Brian Wilson, Richard Thompson).

The performances range from giddy to ghastly (there's no room for a full band and nowhere to hide performance weaknesses in a London cab), but many of the performers take a goofy glee in singing from the back seat of a cab driving through busy city streets.

One of the more recent episodes features Iceland's own Hafdis Huld, who seems to be having so much fun (despite being stalked by a crazy street person) that it should be against the law. Here she is singing her ode to Alain Robert (the French skyscraper climber nicknamed "Spiderman") Iceland's #1 hit single "Kongulo":

Hafdis Huld from Black Cab Sessions on Vimeo.

(See the official video for "Könguló" here.)

Bagel Chips from the L.A. Fireball

There are few great bagels outside of New York.

On a very sad day many years ago, my favorite bagel shop in Los Angeles closed. Their bagels weren't great, but they were pretty good.

In the weeks and months that followed, Mrs. Clicks & Pops and I went to a variety of bagel shops. We weren't very impressed.

Then we found a bagel place that was pretty good. Not amazing, but at least as good as the one that closed. The staff was cool and the bagels were always toasted exactly right. The only problem was the location.

It's not that the new bagel place was too far away, but it was on a corner that's difficult to drive to if you can't remember exactly which street to turn down. And this was in an area where most of the streets looked the same (and had similar names).

We needed a mnemonic device.

And then I realized that the street our new favorite bagel place was on was the same street (several miles and major intersections away) where my college friend Tom Spath lives. That's an interesting fact, but it's not quite a mnemonic. So, out of nowhere, I loudly proclaimed "I've got it! Tom Spath is a giant bagel!" I think we laughed at this for about 20 minutes.

(Note: Tom Spath is actually not a giant bagel. He's a human being, not made of water, eggs, and flour, not available in a variety of flavors with several toppings, not giant, and certainly not baked in an oven, sliced lengthwise in half and run through a slow-moving-conveyor-belt-type industrial toaster to lightly brown his surface while leaving his insides chewy.)

After thinking up the mnemonic, we never again forgot what street the new bagel shop was on -- all we had to do was say "Tom Spath is a giant bagel" and we'd know how to get there.

About a month later, we saw Tom Spath and told him about the new bagel place and our fantastic mnemonic device. He was not amused. Actually, that's an extreme understatement. Tom wasn't quite insulted, but he certainly lacked the appropriate amount of glee at this most clever of all mnemonic devices. If he had his choice right then, we would have forgotten the whole thing.

But his lack of reaction got under our skin. If he had laughed, we likely would have moved on to finding a way to remember which Trader Joe's has the parking lot where people are the least stupid. But instead, over the next few months, we would concentrate on Tom's reaction more and more, sometimes trying to figure out some variation that would amuse him. Eventually, my rock-star wife began singing little songs about Tom as we drove to the bagel place, expressing details of Tom's life in bagel-centric terms. I quickly joined in, hoping to make up for my lack of singing skills with amusing lyrics. (I should mention that this entire endeavor quickly got out of hand; at one point, there were probably 10 or 12 verses and at least two bridges and we'd stop only because it took far less time to get to the bagel place than to sing the song.)

Since Tom was so unamused when we told him our mnemonic phrase, we didn't mention the song to him.

At least not until it was recorded (and whittled down from an "Alice's Restaurant"-length epic to a lean-and-mean 83 seconds).

And then we kind of had to tell him. He was apprehensive at the idea, but loved the song when he finally heard it.

So, although this explanation is longer than the song itself, in the words of the late Paul Harvey: "Now you know... the rest of the story." (Link for Gmail subscribers)

Judge Not (Lest You Be Judged By Your Record Collection)

Digital music has robbed us of the opportunity to examine the records (or even CDs) of new friends and acquaintances.

These days, it's considered rude to poke through your friends iTunes libraries (or so they tell me when they catch me).

But as important as what music people had was how it was arranged: randomly, in order of preference, by year, by genre, or alphabetically by artist name (and if it's the last one, should Andy Partridge get his own category or be filed with XTC? And do you consider Alice Cooper a band and file it under "A" or a singer and file it under "C"?).

Regular readers may not be surprised that my favorite way of arranging music is this:


And, as a special 100th post bonus, my favorite video of all time that features a drummer dressed up as a lion (and add 20 coolness points for the 45rpm adaptor painted on his bass drum).

Kid Blue

Some people were born to sing.

Melissa made a beeline for the record crates and started thumbing through my albums, nodding in appreciation at some, shaking her head with disbelief at others, and then pausing and pulling a record out and holding it up to her face.

"People tell me all the time that I look just like her." I looked from Melissa to the picture on Louise Goffin's first album (Kid Blue). I couldn't see the resemblance, but said nothing.

"And I sing like her, too. Everyone tells me I have the voice of an angel. Or a bird who soars over the mountaintops." My roommates and I exchanged glances. Doubting her. And trying to remember whose friend Melissa was and how she wound up at our apartment.

Melissa didn't sing that night. But a few weeks later, I was at her apartment, looking through her records. Which were awful. "I just have the Bay City Rollers to be ironic," she said. I counted 9 albums of irony, but there may have been more.

And a few days after that, she dropped by with a deck of tarot cards and asked if we could listen to Kid Blue while she read my cards. "Some people were just born to sing," she said, then carefully dealt the cards and studied them. Finally, she smiled. "The cards say you're going to sleep with me," she said. "And the cards are never wrong." (Link for Gmail subscribers.)



If ever there was someone born to sing, it's Louise Goffin. The daughter of legendary songwriters Gerry Goffin and Carole King, was raised around rock royalty, got her first record deal at age 16, and opened for Jackson Browne when she was 17. She had a voice that could reach into your chest and grab you by the heart and never let go. The song "Kid Blue" should've been a hit... and her cover of the Shangri-La's "Remember (Walking in the Sand)" made the Aerosmith version seem like... well, the Bay City Rollers.

When Goffin's album came out, she was 19 and the critics harped on how her record wasn't as good as Carole King's Tapestry (which featured backing vocals by James Taylor and Joni Mitchell and was produced after King had nearly a decade as a hit songwriter under her belt). After a couple of other albums in the 1980s, Goffin's priorities shifted (as indicated by the photo to the right, borrowed from Goffin's MySpace page) and she got married and started a family. After 13 years away, Goffin signed with Dreamworks records and released Sometimes a Circle in 2002, which was smooth, confident, and totally out of touch with what most fans wanted.

Goffin and Carole King re-recorded King's "Where You Lead," which served as the theme for The Gilmore Girls, a TV show set in the type of music-obsessed world where someone like Louise Goffin could have been a big star. (Link for Gmail subscribers.)


And Melissa? Today I know that sometimes the tarot cards are wrong (even if they weren't that night). I do remember the shock of waking from a nightmare of animals being tortured and finding Melissa singing to me. Her voice was beyond awful. If she sang like a bird, it wasn't a bird soaring over mountaintops, but a bird howling with existential agony after crashing into a craggy peak.

Yes, some people are born to sing... but Melissa (despite her unwavering and completely misplaced confidence) was not one of those people. (I never told her -- I guess it wasn't in the cards.)

Bonus: Here's a recent Louise Goffin song called "Pink Champagne." If there were any justice in this world, this song would have been a huge radio hit. (Then again, if there were any justice in the world, there would be a lot more great radio to listen to.)

Top Ten Facts About the Weakerthans

Leaning on this broken fence between past and present tense.

The Weakerthans, whom I've mentioned here and here, performed last night in L.A. Much of the crowd sang along for good portions of the band's 100-minute set, which reminded me again of the sheer power and joy of great music played well.

In honor of the show, here's a list of my 10 favorite facts about the Weakerthans:


10. Head Weakerthan John K. Samson is the Seth Green of Canadian Rock. While his bandmates jump around like goofy and gleeful teenagers doing ironic impressions of arena rock moves, he stands still, vaguely amused by the chaos swirling around him (like Oz waiting to tell Giles and Buffy that he's really the one in charge of the Scooby Gang).

9. It's hard not to love a four-piece band that tours with a fifth musician who plays keyboards, guitars, and trumpet.

8. Their Spring 2009 tour was called the "Rolling Tundra Revue."

7. Their song "Aside" was the third-best thing about the movie Wedding Crashers. (Here's a taste, in a fan-produced video that's gotten nearly 150,000 hits.)


6. The band's second album Left and Leaving was voted the 6th best Canadian album of all time (behind two Neil Young albums, and one each by Broken Social Scene, Sloan, and Joni Mitchell. Their third album is even better. And the latest one is even better than that.

5. They have written the first (and perhaps only) great rock song about curling:


4. Samson collaborated with Inuit throat singer Nikki Komaksiutiksak on a song called "Keewatin Arctic" for Canada's "Record of the Week" club where musicians from different backgrounds are put together semi-randomly and given one evening to right and record a song, which is mixed and made available for download that same night. Hear (or buy) "Keewatin Arctic" here.

3. Crowds around the world will sing along to any song that has a simple, memorable chorus, like the one in "One Great City": "I hate Winnipeg" (with Londoners happily singing in this video).

2. The "Civil Twilight" video, which I've posted before, is shot in one continuous take. A penguin (although perhaps not the same one who taught Samson French in the song "Our Retired Explorer") makes a cameo as one of the bus riders.

1. There's nothing quite like crowding with hundreds of people in a small Hollywood club on a day when it's 105 degrees (but a dry 105 degrees) to hear a Canadian band singing songs about winter in the Great North. Good thing Los Angeles is an irony-free zone (with great air conditioning).

Springsteen Tests Your Lactose Intolerance

Here I am down in Kingstown again.

Some songs carry with them clear and vibrant associations, even if the associations make no sense.

When I first heard the Bruce Springsteen song "Hungry Heart," I wasn't thinking about the great Flo & Eddie (from the Turtles) backing vocals, or Springsteen's own vocal, which was sped up slightly to add urgency to the track. I wasn't thinking about how Springsteen wrote the song for the Ramones, but his manager (who had seen the future of rock 'n' roll and its name was Bruce Springsteen) said it would be a big hit and wouldn't let the Boss give it to someone else to record.

None of that.

What I thought about was the opening lines:

Got a wife and kids in Baltimore, Jack
I went out for a ride and I never went back.

Instantly, the first time I heard it, I changed the lyrics in my head to:

Got a wife and kids in Monterey Jack
I put them in cheese now they'll never talk back.

It made little sense thirty years ago. And it makes even less sense now.

But I still can't think of that song without thinking of those lines which aren't even in the song and make no sense in or out of context.

For me, "Hungry Heart" is and forever will be the cheese song.

(Video filmed in 1995 in a small Berlin cafe.)