To Her Cheshire Smile

To skate away on... to some alien, distant shore.

I don't know what it is about dreams. They sneak up on you, torpedo you with anxiety and hopes, then drag you across the cluttered floor of your subconscious.

And why are the scariest dreams the ones that sound the most benign and mundane when you describe them?

The other night, I dreamed I was in a meeting about a project. I don't remember what the project was, but in the dream I was very excited about it.

And I came out of the meeting, which was in an old duplex house with curved doorways and dark grey adobe stones.

And I looked into the other unit of the duplex -- which was a mirror image of the one I'd come from -- only the walls were painted a deep, rich ocean blue. Then I saw her.

And she said she was surprised to see me. So I mumbled something about the meeting. Then she said "I didn't think I was allowed to talk to you." Which is weird because I thought I wasn't allowed to talk to her.

And it's been many, many years since I've seen her. But she got into my blood like a virus and I'm still not sure I have all the antibodies I need.

So we talked and the party she was at swirled around us. She was selfish and sad and her life was one long emergency. But I loved her then more than either of us could understand. And being back in her presence, even if just for a moment, even if just in a dream, was intoxicating. And very, very, very sad.


And as we talked, I realized she was in danger. If she went to Hungary she would die. And the thought froze me, terrified me. And I let myself think for a moment about what that would mean if she died... and whether that would make her finally vacate that chunk of real estate in my brain she's occupied (without signing a lease or even paying her share of the utilities) for so long.

I must have gotten quiet, because she suddenly grabbed my arm and looked me in the eyes. "Why did you come here?" she asked.

I wanted to say this.


But I'm not Bruce Springsteen. Hell, on my best days I'm barely Manfred Mann.

So I didn't tell her. But I did say "don't go to Hungary." Her smile turned confused, gradually fading. (Even when I'm wide awake, it lingers behind her, leaving the hint of her essence.)

And then, though it took every ounce of effort I had, I got up and I left.

Another Sign of the Impending Apocalypse?

If I hadn't actually seen this in a store, I'd assume it was a joke.

Okay, I get it that Americans have taken lazy to a whole new level with the Snuggie. Not only do you not have to get off the couch, you don't even have to expend the effort needed to take your hands out from under the blanket.

What I don't understand is this (sadly) real product:


I guess some people won't be happy until their dogs are as lazy as they are...

Inside the Phantom Zone of Fun

Climbing high up the mountain of love -- or any other place I must go...

Holly Hughes has a damn fine blog called The Song in My Head Today. In the past, she's rhapsodized about Paul McCartney, Marshall Crenshaw, the Kinks (including an entire month where she reviewed their catalog in chronological order), and Nick Lowe. But mostly what she does is talk about a song that's stuck in her head and dissect the music and what it means to her. Great stuff.

Lately, Holly's been counting down her list of Top 100 Singles of All Time (5 per post) and she's about halfway through. That's great for reading about those Top 100 Singles, but makes me miss that "Song in My Head Today" feel.

So today, (since she's not using it right now) I'm stealing um hijacking um borrowing the entire underlying concept of her blog.



Somewhere in the universe, there's a party that goes on forever. And the Fleshtones are the house band.

Like General Zod trapped in the Phantom Zone (reference too obscure? watch a few seconds of this), this Phantom Zone of Fun slices through our three-dimensional reality, suddenly blinking into existence from out of nowhere.

"Hexbreaker" fades up like it's always been playing but we just couldn't hear it before. The song seems simultaneously fresh and dated. And yeah, "Hexbreaker" came out in 1983, when handclaps and drumbeats were sampled and played from keyboards -- and even Springsteen was dipping his Jersey Toe into the murky synth waters. But these are real hands clapping (not quite in unison) and a real drummer playing (not always exactly on the beat). It sounds human -- sometimes sloppy, always delightful. These guys seem like they're stuck in 1957 or 1965, not like they're contemporaries of the Human League or Talking Heads.

And it builds slowly. The call-and-response vocals have that frat-party everyone-shout-along quality. The sax sizzles, promising something dirty and sexy and vaguely forbidden. It's a perfect match for the raspy vocal style of Pete Zaremba. And the words channel bad hoodoo, love gone horribly wrong, and the promises of the magical talisman that has always been rock 'n' roll.

"Wait a minute," he says. "Are you ready for a SuperRock time?" And in this alternate universe, in the Phantom Zone of Fun, we're all ready. But he makes us wait, letting Keith Streng's guitar chug-chug-chug us forward, building and churning.

The cars whizz past (bottles will break)
People shout (how much can we take?)
Just keep calm (what more can we say?)
Because we always stay cool -- we like it that way.

And as the song builds, we wonder who (or what) is the Hexbreaker? And what hex needs to be broken anyway? Then we realize -- it's everything. And the song, drenched in echo, drips with the sweat of 100 revelers crowding the dance floor.

In all matters of money and love, the band promises, the Hexbreaker's power is strong. This is primal stuff -- and if you've ever believed that rock 'n' roll can save your life or redeem your soul, you'll want to tap into this kegger and drink deep from the heady brew they serve in the Phantom Zone of Fun.

But just as we're getting somewhere, the song starts to drift away. The band is floating off to another galaxy and we can't go with them. Clearly this song goes on forever, but just intersects our sonic plane of existence for 4 short minutes.

And maybe that's why this song sounds as fresh, vital, and elusive now as it did a quarter century ago. Whatever the reason, it makes me want to dance (and that almost never happens) and get up and join the party, traveling the universe to spread the joyous gospel of the SuperRock sound of the Fleshtones.

And that, with apologies to Holly Hughes, is why "Hexbreaker" is the song in my head today.

Go Here, Read These, Listen to That

Not the Smokey Robinson Kind

I could conjure a miracle or three for you because it's that time. Or I could link to the Andy Partridge-produced "Miracle of the Age" by Dr. & the Medics (famed as much for the lead singer's hair as for their 80s remake of "Spirit in the Sky") -- but I can't find it anywhere online.

So I'll let others be miraculous today:

Whiteray over at Echoes in the Wind believes in miracles. So does Barely Awake in Frog Pajamas.

Meanwhile, the streets may be clear in Vancouver, but over at Matador Records, it's snowing. Which somehow indicates that there's a new New Pornographers album out in a couple months... and with song titles like "Valkyrie in the Roller Disco" you know it'll be amazing. You can listen to or download the song "Your Hands (Together)" which has a very slow build, but explodes out of the gate about a minute in.

NBC Screws Up Olympics Slightly Better Than Last Time

Some things are just hard to understand.

NBC has a broadcast television network (or at least what's left of it after the Jay Leno debacle), a Spanish-language broadcasting network, and dozens of cable properties.

But somehow they can't manage to broadcast any Olympic events live on the West Coast? And they can't have any live internet streams?

I gotta check my calendar because I'm pretty sure it's not 1976 anymore.

In a world of 500 cable channels and potentially limited bandwidth, this is the best they can do? And even though the coverage is slightly better than the 2006 Winter Olympics (where pretty much only medalists and American competitors got on the air), it's still pretty pathetic.

Hell, I'd even be willing to pony up $20 or $30 to watch things live on cable or on the web.

And now NBC is mad that other news outlets won't join them in pretending coverage of news is still stuck in the 20th century. (Do you think NBC is trying to get a Gold Medal in Stupidity?)

But while large media corporations are busy digging their own graves, savvy musicians are finding interesting ways to adapt to changing times. Camper Van Beethoven, another band that used to be on a major label and now are independent, are financing their trip to South by Southwest by selling sponsorship of songs in their set. For only $102, you can pick a song the band plays, then have a "Roller Derby Girl" walk across the stage with a placard announcing your sponsorship of the song.

I wonder if they'd charge extra if you chose this:

Long Tails and Ears for Hats

When is a guilty pleasure not a guilty pleasure?

Let's put the bad news and sad stories on hold for a bit and concentrate on pure, sunny pop music.

I love Deborah Kaplan & Harry Elfont's 2001 movie Josie and the Pussycats. It's a real guilty pleasure -- with Rachel Leigh Cook, Tara Reid, and Rosario Dawson as the Pussycats, Seth Green as a member of a boy band, and Alan Cumming and Parker Posey as evil music industry tastemakers. The plot mixes a sappy love story with an over-the-top satire about putting subliminal messages (voiced by Mr. Moviephone himself) in pop songs to help sell products (and convince teen girls that orange is the new black).


It's a mixed bag, but has some wonderful moments (like Tara Reid's then boyfriend Carson Daily trying to kill the Pussycats on a TRL appearance gone very, very wrong).

Still, the music is a real pleasure -- no guilt necessary.

Kay Hanley (ex of Letters to Cleo) sings Josie's parts and the music comes from writers like Fountains of Wayne's Adam Schlesinger, Babyface, Jason Falkner, Matthew Sweet, Jane Wiedlin (of the Go-Go's), Adam Duritz (of the Counting Crows), and others. The sound is mostly power-pop, sweet but with an edge.

And it's hard to argue with the equation Rachel Leigh Cook + Kay Hanley = punk rock prom queen (not to mention a late-night head rush and no one's little red corvette).

International Pop Overthrow

A band out of time, too perfect to continue?

We drove into the packed parking garage behind the building, pulled into a space, and looked out at concrete columns and support beams. As another car drove up behind us, I could feel the building sway.

I asked her if she thought it was safe. She said it was a miracle that any building could hold thousands of cars, supporting millions of pounds of weight.

"But the support beam looks bent," I noted. She looked, nodded, then said we should go.

Yes, the building would probably collapse, but it had been there for years, so it probably wouldn't collapse that day. And, she reasoned, if it did we really wouldn't want to be there in the garage.

Then she walked away, leaving me to watch in wonder. A few steps later, she turned back, smiled, and asked if I was coming with her. Her world made little sense to me and the weight of her insanity crushed and bent logic like it was that support beam in the garage. And I knew then and there that she'd snap someday, but she'd been functional for years, so she probably wouldn't snap that day. So I nodded. And I followed.(Link for Gmail subscribers.)


If Material Issue had come along 20 years earlier, they'd have been superstars. 10 years later, they'd have been stars.

But the band, formed in 1985 in Chicago, burst onto the national scene in the early 90s, when grunge ruled and there was little interest in power-pop trios singing songs of love and yearning (most of them with girls' names in the titles).

But there was always something edgy about this band -- they didn't play the sweet power pop of the Raspberries. No, this was a Power Trio, merging their pop with anger and irony and then filtering it all through a fuzzbox.

Too much? Probably. Jim Ellison, Material Issue's lead singer and songwriter, took his life 15 years ago at the age of 32.

And after that, what's left? A handful of albums and a legacy so strong that an annual power-pop festival was proudly named after the band's first album.

And then there's this song:


The verses meander as the singer desperately tries to convince anyone who'll listen that he's the only one he really understands this girl of his dreams. Each verse ends with words and lines crammed together, desperate to declare undying love and fighting the realization that he's not fooling anyone.

Then what passes for a chorus: revved-up guitar and the plaintive wail "Valerie Loves Me." And the anguish always makes me wonder who the singer's trying to convince: us or himself. And that's it (at least for the chorus). Because what more can you say?

The answer's in the other verses -- Valerie's dreaming of other guys, hanging around with other guys, not giving the singer the time of day. But that won't stop his echo-drenched cry in the chorus: "Valerie Loves Me!"

And that should be enough, but it's not. So the singer projects his dream girl decades into the future when she's old and gray and has nothing. And then, he rejects her retroactively from the future (even though careful listeners may long since have concluded that she might not even be know he exists) before one last primal scream of a semi-chorus: "Valerie Loves Me." Which leads into a tentative instrumental break that ends uncertainly, resolving nothing (and therefore perhaps underscoring that the singer is the ultimate in unreliable narrators).

*********************

Years later, I drive by the parking garage alone.

The entrance is taped off and a cop directs traffic around it.

I slow down to ask what happened. "A support beam buckled," he tells me. "They're gonna have to knock the whole garage down."

I nod, wondering if I should find the girl (whose own support beam buckled long ago) and tell her... or just keep driving.