Real friends drive you to the airport. Facebook friends virtually drive you to the cyber-airport.
One of my Facebook friends started posting a bunch of XTC videos I'd never seen before. (And isn't that the true beauty of the internets?)
A little background before I share:
XTC, a great live band and an even better studio band, stopped touring in 1982 after Andy Partridge had a mental breakdown and developed a crippling case of stage fright. The band would play occasionally in the years that followed at a few radio stations and on TV.
After their April-Fools-Day psychedlic joke EP 25 O'Clock (released under the pseudonym the Dukes of Stratosphear) sold better than their regular albums in 1985, Virgin (XTC's record company) told the band they wanted them to have a big-name producer for their next album. Virgin gave the band a list of names and they chose the only one they recognized: Todd Rundgren. The band flew off to Woodstock, NY where they clashed with Rundgren almost from the start. The album that resulted, the "life in a day" song cycle Skylarking, which manages to sound simultaneously lush and tossed off, would become a huge hit thanks to "Dear God," which was a B-side that wasn't even on the first pressings of the record.
These two videos date from 1987 -- an appearance on the British TV show The Tube, hosted at the time by former Squeeze keyboardist Jules Holland. (The show would be cancelled soon thereafter when Holland used the word "fuck" in a live promo for the show.)
The songs are both from Skylarking, which featured both the megahit "Dear God" and the insanely catch "Earn Enough For Us." But XTC didn't play the song people knew or the catchy song. Nope. They played two dense album tracks that fans would leave fans ecstatic and leave everyone else scratching their heads.
Still, the videos are pretty cool -- and if you haven't seen 'em, they're new to you.
I had a business meeting recently at one of those big chain coffee shops that rename their drink sizes to make them seem more exotic and play Norah Jones incessantly to make them seem hip. I was early, so I got a cup of tea and sat down to wait. One of the baristas walked to the back grinning and carrying a CD. A moment later, Norah Jones stopped and "A Million Miles Away" by the Plimsouls started blasting out of the sound system.
And, as everyone in the coffee shop started to smile, I realized again that "A Million Miles Away" is a perfect pop song.
There's a lot of reasons for this... here's just a few:
The drums are propulsive (even after being filtered through cheesy 80s production filters).
It's about longing and distance... which is something everyone can relate to. And the distance in the lyric is underscored by just a touch of echo.
Maybe the next generation won't realize it, but there really was a time when songs would come on the radio and they'd so perfectly capture moods and memories that it would make you stop and think.
The vocals perfectly capture longing and just a glimmer of hope, but the hope is pushed way down to let you know that it's probably not going to pay off. Similarly, the harmonies are sweet, but edgy -- they keep you coming back, but there's a melancholy deeply embedded with the joy.
The guitar riffs are simple, but amazingly memorable.
We've all been at the wrong end of the looking glass (even if what the song really refers to is being at the wrong end of a telescope).
The best songs really do make you drift away until you really feel like you are falling off the edge of (someone's) world and you'll never get back.
The nostalgia of the lyric and the delivery -- is he trying to hold onto the past or to the girl? And in the end, does it really matter?
The scariest ghosts are the ones that continue to haunt us from past relationships.
Two words: Valley Girl (the movie, not the song).
But here's the best reason that this is a perfect pop song:
Back at the coffee shop, the manager yelled at the clerk to turn off the Plimsouls and put back on the corporate-approved jazzy compilation featuring Norah Jones. The clerk shouted above the roar of the espresso machine "But 'A Million Miles Away' is, like, the national anthem of Los Angeles."
And as I looked around the coffee shop, three people nodded their heads in agreement.
Speaking of Jim Boggia, a while ago on For the Love of Harry posted Jim's great 2002 "The Harry Nilsson Song."
If you love pure pop music (along the lines of Matthew Sweet and Richard X. Heyman), check out more Jim Boggia on his MySpace page -- particularly "8 Track."
Sheila was supposed to be a star. Everyone in High School knew it.
While others walked, she ran. And when others ran, she flew, long ponytale of blonde hair shaking from side to side until there was nothing left but dust and memories.
She won ribbons at every track meet. Made the State team. And kicked ass at the Nationals. Until everyone began to talk about how she'd be a shoo-in to make the Olympic team. And win a few medals.
In her final race (shown live in primetime, naturally), Sheila would fall behind some trash-talking runner from Lithuania, but spot some of her friends and neighbors in the stands, reach down for some extra energy, and kick it up a few notches so she could come from behind and win the gold.
That was what was supposed to happen.
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Rockpile was supposed to be huge, too.
A supergroup that never quite was called a supergroup, Rockpile was home to two superstars-in-waiting. Dave Edmunds, the guitar virtuoso formerly with Love Sculpture, was obsessed with 50s rock and roll. Nick Lowe, aka "Basher," came out of the pub-rock of Brinsley Schwartz, but was adored by punks and new wavers (thanks to his role as de facto staff producer for Stiff Records).
They recruited guitarist Billy Bremner and drummer Terry Williams and set out to take over the world. Except that Edmunds and Lowe were signed to different labels and couldn't record as Rockpile. So, for several years, Rockpile acted as the backing band (live and on record) for both Lowe and Edmunds, supporting whoever had a new record out, but really functioning as a single band with two leaders. This worked well for three years and resulted in great albums like Repeat When Necessary and Labour of Lust. (Link for Gmail subscribers.)
A month before the Olympic trials, Sheila was riding her bike and she got hit by a car that ran a stop sign. She was knocked to the ground and broke a small bone in her left foot. It healed, but her stride was never quite the same.
She competed in the Olympic trials but wasn't quite fast enough. This was a shock to all of us who knew her.
All the ribbons, all the victories, didn't add up to an Olympic medal. And our entire school (and in a way, most of the town) was disappointed.
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Three years after first working together, Rockpile was finally free to make their own album under their own name. The record that came out Seconds of Pleasure was a delight -- not quite a great rock record, but filled with terrific moments. There were great Nick Lowe/Dave Edmunds songs, obscure covers of rock old (Chuck Berry) and new (a wonderful Difford/Tilbrook song Squeeze somehow didn't want to record).
But the tensions of actually being a band (instead of being a backing band) quickly proved to be too much. Edmunds and Lowe clashed constantly during the recording and the tour that followed. A few months later, Rockpile was no more. The band, so great when it was in the background with Lowe and Edmunds sharing the spotlight (and each alternately dictating what the sound should be), fell apart when they had to define who and what they really were. Having one foot in the 50s, one foot in the pub, and one foot straddling the line between punk and new wave made it all but impossible for the band to stay standing.
Here's what we never knew about Sheila. She had one foot in sports and the other academics. When she didn't make the Olympic team, it wasn't as disappointing for her as it was for the rest of us. She had another path in mind.
So she cut her hair, dyed it brown, and hit the books.
And she thrived, finishing near the top of our High School class, getting into a small prestigious New England college, and going to an Ivy League law school. She took to running late at night in the local woods -- not quite as fast, but uncomplicated by the expectations of an entire town.
Sheila graduated near the top of her law school class and had offers with top firms in 12 cities around the world. But that wasn't her path, either.
Today, she works for a variety of non-profit groups, doing her part to make the world a better place. She says with a playful smile that she never gets paid enough -- and sometimes doesn't even get paid at all.
I asked her recently if she ever thought about what might have been. She sighed. Then told me that sometimes, very late at night, when the stars are out and the wind is cold, she thinks about marching into an Olympic stadium, and competing against the best in the world. "But," she added, "that feeling goes away when the sun comes up. Then I look around, see everything I need to do, roll up my sleeves, and get to work."
Number 3 in a delusional Los Angeles-based series.
Missed Connections -- Hollywood
I was puking off the bridge and you were driving on the 101 North.
Your car was beautiful, not ostentatious. You were well-dressed, but had a touch of wildness in your hair. You drove with quiet confidence and the traffic parted to let you through.
A little bit of vomit hit your windshield and you looked up.
Our eyes met and I knew then and there you were the one.
You could have hit the windshield washer, but you didn't. Did you want a souvenir of our brief, magical moment together? Did you dream of holding my hair the next time I have to boot?
I'm taking a chance, I'm putting myself out there. Since that day, I wait every morning on the bridge, but I haven't seen your car again.
Maybe you're taking surface streets... looking for me.
These days, producers with computers strip vocals from one song, add beats, take samples from another song, add new vocals, and come up with something "new" (or at least new-ish).
(And if you're not sure you understand what a mashup is, listen to this. I'll wait.)
Harry Nilsson did the same thing. In 1967. With no computers or studio tricks.
Instead, Nilsson took a single Beatle song as a spine and wrapped around it vocal and instrumental licks from more than a dozen other songs. With no producers with computers to fix all his shitty tracks. The result was different from lame TV-show medleys and was fun and memorable (and a great way to respond to John Lennon's statement that Nilsson was his "favorite American band"). Not bad for a guy who was doing computer work for a bank and trying to peddle his songs to established acts. (Link for Gmail subscribers.)
Thirteen years later, Ringo Starr was in the middle of recording an album that would ultimately be retitled Stop and Smell the Roses. (John Lennon, 12 days before he was killed, gave Ringo demos of 2 new songs Lennon wrote for Ringo, including "Nobody Told Me." They made arrangements for Lennon to produce a session for Ringo to record the songs in early January 1981. When Lennon was killed in December 1980, Ringo couldn't bring himself to record the songs. An enhanced version of Lennon's demo would surface a few years later on the posthumous Milk and Honey album.)
For Stop and Smell the Roses, Harry Nilsson decided to revisit the technique he'd used for "You Can't Do That": with Nilsson producing (and singing background vocals) Ringo re-recorded his 1972 hit "Back Off Boogaloo" (now featuring the intro from "It Don't Come Easy" and more of a funk feel). Nilsson used "Back Off Boogaloo" as a structure from which he hung sections from a half-dozen other songs by Ringo and the Beatles. The result was mixed; mostly it worked, but it felt like it probably should have gone a lot farther. (Link for Gmail subscribers.)
So offering these examples from the years before Pro Tools and sophisticated music software, I put forth this simple idea:
These days, producers with computers strip vocals from one song, add beats, take samples from another song, add new vocals, and come up with something "new" (or at least new-ish).
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