Grunge Kills Semantics

Or, why music in the 90s sucked, part 817

Hoping to follow in the footsteps of artists like Let's Active and Matthew Sweet (both of whom were inches away from superstardom), Will Owsley formed a powerpop band in Nashville with songwriter Millard Powers.

The band, who called themselves the Semantics, got signed to Geffen Records and spent years recording their first album with legendary producer Peter Asher. The band initially featured Ben Folds on drums, but he left to form his own band and was replaced by Zak Starkey, son of one Ringo Starr.

Power Pop nirvana, right? What could possibly go wrong? (Link for Gmail subscribers)


Well, Nirvana could go wrong. And did.

And the groundswell of grunge reared its head and crushed all the pop it could find.

Flannel and noise were in. Harmonies and jangly guitars were out.

By the time the band turned in their first (and only) album Powerbill, Geffen had lost interest. They dithered and eventually passed on the album.

So the band broke up. Amy Grant heard the album and hired Owsley to play in her touring band. He'd release a terrific solo album a few years later (coproduced by Millard Powers) and record and tour for years with Amy Grant and Shania Twain.

The Semantics record finally came out in 1996 in Japan, where it sold 20,000 copies with no promotion whatsoever.

Grunge would soon be over too -- but by then it was too late for the Semantics. The band was over and done with.

But at least they left behind some amazing music -- and an album that should've been a huge hit if record companies weren't tripping over themselves to chase the next big thing up to Seattle.


In a sad postscript, Owsley died a few months ago at age 44, an apparent suicide.

RIP.

More Dixon/Jones

Just a tad more...

Continuing the Don Dixon/Marti Jones jag of the past week, here's another double-shot of Don Dixon and Marti Jones.

Because great songs are great songs no matter how much (or how little) instrumentation they have, here's Dixon and Jones with a stripped-down live version of "Praying Mantis" (complete with instructions on the secret hidden chord):


And the full-band version of Marti's great cover of Bland Simpson's "Follow You All Over the World" (which, in a more just universe, would have made her bigger than Madonna -- and capable of better choices in movie roles):

I'm Not Moved by Your Artful Display

Another Alternate-Universe Superstar

In another 20 years, the phrase "wait by the phone" will seem as antiquated as crank starters for horseless carriages. When the phone goes everywhere, there's no waiting. And when the caller ID pops up all the time, there's no surprise about who might be on the other end. But even when that happens, "You Can Still Ruin My Day" by Jon Brion will be a great song.

I don't wait by the phone like I used to
I don't hope for kind words you might say
You don't prey on my mind like you used to
But you can still ruin my day.

The call comes, he tells me.

If you wait long enough, it always comes.

And you think enough time has gone by. You think the feelings aren't there anymore. You think you're over her.

But sooner or later the call comes.

And he pauses, sucking deeply on the cigarette he shouldn't have been smoking. Looking up at the ceiling and as if the meaning of life could be found there.

And it seems innocuous. Because by the time she makes the call, she's fine.

And maybe it doesn't matter for her.

He slides his legs out of bed. Determined to go outside. Willing the decades of cramps and pain away.

But the feelings never go away. You can't destroy them. It's like an emotional law of physics.

The feelings, they lurk around in your brain or your gut.

Waiting for the next time they can jump out and knock you for a loop.

If you're lucky, they change. Transform into something else.

If you're lucky.

He puts on a sweatshirt. Grabs the cane. Then shakes his head and carefully tips it up against the wall.

The ironic thing is you think you want the call.

You dream about it for months, years, decades.

Then, when it comes...

And he gestures with his hand. Some old-fashioned gesture that maybe meant something 50 years ago, maybe means something now, and maybe is the only thing to do when there are no words.

And I follow him out into the hallway. Out towards the sunshine of the terrace.

Not saying anything. Watching him grimace in pain. And knowing the pain in his legs is easier to bear than the pain in his heart.



In an alternate universe, Jon Brion is more popular than Madonna and Justin Bieber combined.

Here, he's known and loved as a record producer, songwriter, aficionado of melodic pop music. His Friday-night gigs at Cafe Largo in L.A. were legendary even if his own music (especially 2001's amazing Meaningless album), production work (for Aimee Mann, Fiona Apple, Elliot Smith, Robyn Hitchcock, Of Montreal, etc.), and film scoring work (Magnolia, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and many more) failed to make him a household name.

In this world, we've got to settle for the occasional song that squeaks through on his film work, his great live shows, and the hope that he'll someday get around to releasing the follow-up to Meaningless.

By the way, I'd be much obliged if anyone from the alternate universe where Jon Brion is a superstar could slip me a live recording of the shows he must have done with the supergroup he must have assembled (which most likely includes Robyn Hitchcock, Don Dixon, Scott McCaughey, and Marshall Crenshaw). Thanks.

Bonus: "Walking Through Walls," another great song from Meaningless, this one co-written with Grant Lee Phillips (and featuring great call-and-response vocals and a dash of profanity). Listen here.

Taking the Dork Bullet

I took the dork bullet for Don Dixon.

I’ve always wondered if it’s possible to meet someone famous and not seem like a dork.

I’m not talking about when you work with famous people (in which case you’re collaborators or at least colleagues and there’s less inequality). No, I’m talking about when you meet someone and you’re the fan and they’re the artist.

It’s always made me feel weird.

What can you say?

I’m a big fan. Well, obviously.
I’m your biggest fan. A) Creepy, and B) probably not true.
I love your work. Better, but it drips of phony show-biz.
I loved XX. What, you don't love anything else they did?

So I generally try to avoid the situation. Because, no matter what I say, I feel like a dork.

But when Don Dixon rolled into town a couple summers ago, I took the dork bullet.

If you don’t know, Dixon was one of the hot producers of the 1980s, bringing what’s now called “jangle pop” to the masses. Dixon, along with Mitch Easter, produced the first couple of REM albums, along with records from Marshall Crenshaw, Dumptruck, Marti Jones, the Smitherens, Chris Stamey, Kim Carnes, Hootie & the Blowfish, and many, many more.

He was also a great songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, sometime member of the Golden Palominos, and a singer with an intensely emotional voice. For years, he was part of the legendary band Arrogance and, after REM’s success, he signed as a solo artist with Enigma.

For his first album Most of the Girls Like to Dance But Only Some of the Boys Like To, he wrote, arranged, and performed everything. It's a great record, anchored by one of the finest singles that should've topped the charts (but somehow didn't).


After producing the first Marti Jones album, Dixon married Marti Jones. For a while, they were the King and Queen of alt-rock, superstars in waiting. It was just a matter of time. (The Chi-Town Budget Show, a live album they released together around that time, remains an absolute joy.)

In the early 90s, I saw Dixon and Jones several times. Small venues, packed houses, great shows.

But the superstardom never quite happened. Dixon continued recording and performing (as well as doing producing gigs -- rumor has it, he was tapped to produce Nirvana's Nevermind, but lost the gig when he asked for too much money), but grunge took over and jangle pop fell out of favor.

In an alternate universe, Don Dixon may have been a superstar, but here he faded from prominence. Never quite gone, but nowhere near as almost-famous as he'd been in the 80s.

And then, years later, I saw a notice that Dixon and Jones were playing in L.A. I bought tickets and dragged my friend Tom with me to the concert. Great show, amazing music, small but devoted audience. (Link for Gmail subscribers.)


I brought my vinyl of Most of the Girls Like to Dance... with me. Afterwards, I waited patiently on line and got him to sign it. I shook his hand. I thanked him for the great music he'd made (and produced), told him how much it meant to me, and shook his hand. It was dorky, but I meant every word.

And then I went to get Marti's autograph. On my way out, Dixon called out to me by name and waved. (Maybe it's okay to be a dork as long as you're a sincere and grateful dork.)

All the way home I thought I couldn't have taken the dork bullet for a nicer or more talented guy.

Had the Flame But No Candle

It's a Gauntlet, You Gotta Run It

It wasn't supposed to turn out like this.

Graham Parker thought he should've been the next big thing when he was on Mercury Records and a lot of people agreed. He had a great pub-rock sound, amazing songs, the sneer that redefined "angry young man" for the era, and an incredibly strong backing band in the Rumour.

But Mercury didn't know how to put him over the top, so he left them (leaving behind one of the best bitter-record-company-kiss-off songs in rock history "Mercury Poisoning"), signed to Arista, and released the brilliant Squeezing Out Sparks. The album was adored by critics and expanded the cult audience he'd been building for years.

He was on the brink... and surely the next album would make him a superstar.


So the record company turned to Jimmy Iovine, who'd been an engineer on Springsteen's Born to Run album and had produced Tom Petty's breakthrough record Damn the Torpedoes.

The songs were strong. The Rumour was at their peak. And Bruce Springsteen publicly announced that Parker and the Rumour were the only band he would pay to see live. (Springsteen would duet with Parker on "Endless Night" for the new album -- hear it here.)

But the album didn't quite sound right. The performances on record were off and the production sounded muddy and flat.

Arista left "the Rumour" off of the cover and when they album wasn't enormous, the band was soon gone as well.

But the songs were great -- and the band still sounded amazing live.


Parker would chase the superstardom that should have been his for the next decade, signing with (and being dropped by) every major label in existence, making some great videos, and hiring superstar producers who never quite managed to capture lightning in a bottle.

In an alternate universe, Parker would have sold as many records as Springsteen or U2 or Prince. Or maybe he'd be hosting that talk show on the Sundance Channel instead of Elvis Costello.

Sadly, it wasn't to be... at least not in this universe. (Link for Gmail subscribers.)

The Lost Bubblegum Album

And they said "We Don't Understand."

Just before XTC went on strike against Virgin records, Andy Partridge pitched an off-kilter wild idea. XTC would record an album that would be marketed (with a nudge and a wink) as a collection of hit bubblegum songs from the late 60s and early 70s. Virgin would announce that they'd acquired the rights to the imaginary label Zither and release an album of Zither's hits from bands with names like The Lemon Dukes, Sopwith Caramel, The Twelve Flavours of Hercules, Anonymous Bosch, The Brighton Peers, The Lollipopes, Cake's Progress, The Piccadilly Circus Tent Rip Repair Company, etc. All these "bands" would really be XTC and XTC fans would recognize this (in the same way they recognized the Dukes of Stratosphear as XTC).

The songs were all classic bubblegum numbers -- sweet and seemingly innocent but filled with double entendres that would rank them among the filthiest songs ever recorded.

Partridge and Colin Moulding even had demos for a dozen or so of the bubblegum songs. (Link for Gmail subscribers.)


Virgin didn't get it. They wanted XTC on Top of the Pops. Failing that, they wanted to hire young bands to dress up in period costumes and perform the songs on TV.

A couple of these songs leaked out on compilations over the years and more surfaced on Andy Partridge's Fuzzy Warbles demo series.

It could've, should've, would've been amazing. In an alternate universe, it would have knocked Nirvana and all the grunge bands off the radio and out of the stores. We might even have been spared the boy-band craze of the mid-90s and American Idol.


But then again, Virgin never knew what to do with XTC (and XTC didn't have the desire or clout to do anything to resolve their situation with Virgin).

So the album remains lost, unfinished... and legendary.

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.

Thoughts of the French Girl Far Away

I'll Pay Your Way By Hovercraft

It's a cold, rainy, day in Paris.

The French Girl sits drinking coffee and sketching in a notebook. Her iPod plays songs about France in a playlist made by an admirer whose name she can't remember.

As she sketches, she thinks of the world's great museums. But she doesn't want to have her work displayed there. No, the French Girl wants to rob them.

If asked, she'd tell us she'll build an underground bunker beneath a small shack in a tree-lined suburb. She'll house the stolen artworks there and invite her favorite paramours to see the beauty she has hidden.

You see, the French Girl has big dreams.


In an alternate universe, Peter Blegvad would be a huge star playing arenas throughout the known world. Sadly, in our world few people know about him and his records are mostly out of print in the U.S. Needless to say, the French Girl has loaded her iPod with his songs.

She doesn't know about the Figgs, though. She doesn't care that they've toured and recorded with Graham Parker or that their own albums are filled with crunchy, infectious power-pop. In that alternate universe, her tarot-card reader would urge her to go to an all-day festival, where she'd sweat through six mediocre bands until the Figgs came on. She'd love their energy, but turn in indignation and leave immediately when she thought they were mocking her homeland.

Then, she'd go rob another museum.



The French Girl finishes her drink, closes her sketchbook, and puts her pencils away. She runs a hand through her long hair, brushing it out of her face, and leaves the cafe. She rushes off somewhere (because that's what she does).

And you watch her without talking to her (because, sadly, that's what you do). Even in Paris.

I Never Travel Far Without a Little Big Star

Name-checking basks you in the reflected glow of cool.

There's a certain thrill that goes with discovering that someone shares your musical passion. It's an immediate shortcut that establishes you as members of the same tribe.

And when songs name-check your musical obsessions, isn't that just a shortcut to cool?

They Might Be Giants may just be the kings of name-checking bands I love (the dBs, Young Fresh Fellows, XTC) in their songs. Which brings me to the Replacements.

I was late hearing the Replacements, although I'd been reading rave reviews of their records for years. But what drove me to finally seek out the Replacements was the song "We're the Replacements," by They Might Be Giants (the flip side of their "Don't Let's Start" single). The song celebrated the wretched sloppiness that characterized many live performances by the Replacements. (Link for Gmail subscribers.)


Early Replacements records were a bit too sloppy for my taste, but when they tightened things up a little, they were amazing. When their album Pleased to Meet Me came out, I thought the song "Alex Chilton" was amazing and I listened to it over and over again. The song -- an ode to Chilton, who sang "The Letter" for the Box Tops when he was only 16 and went on to form Big Star and release a series of idiosyncratic solo albums starting in the 1970s -- is a pure explosion of tribal joy set to a pounding beat (and an evocation of an alternate universe that loves good music enough that "children by the millions wait for Alex Chilton to come 'round"). (Link for Gmail subscribers.)


Bonus: Yesterday, I was listening to the great Barenaked Ladies album Gordon, remembering how much I loved the song "Brian Wilson." In my mind, the song revels in Wilson's early genius and scratches its head over his long decline and involvement with Dr. Eugene Landy (the shrink who was accused of crossing ethical boundaries by moving in with Wilson and co-producing a Wilson solo album that included songs that credit Landy as co-writer).


(By the way, I have an astrophysicist friend who assures me that if Alex Chilton and Brian Wilson record a song together about They Might Be Giants and Barenaked Ladies, that would bring about a musical singularity that could cause the entire universe to collapse. Luckily, that seems unlikely to happen.)

Looking for Lewis & Clark

Maybe it wasn't the explorers, but Gary Lewis and Gene Clark.

Like most stories, this one begins with a song.

In this case, the song was "Looking for Lewis & Clark" by the Long Ryders, complete with its self-referential lyrics and homage to the Kingsmen.

I was working at my first job out of college (a soul-killing endeavor made almost bearable by great co-workers who lived to savage the company's management during beer-soaked lunch hours at a local pub) and was looking for an apartment in Watertown, Mass. Apartments in the area were notoriously hard to find, so unscrupulous brokers charged obscene "finder's fees" and kicked back half to greedy landlords. One broker's teenage daughter drove me to a series of crappy apartments while trying to get me to comment on whether or not I was in favor of "nipple rouge" (I'd never heard of it and kept trying to change the subject). She had a Long Ryders mix tape that she played as she drove us around in a crappy Pinto whose left front light was missing. (Link for Gmail subscribers.)


I would have cut the afternoon short after the first crappy apartment, but I liked listening to the Long Ryders and wasn't sure exactly how I was going to find a place to live. Plus, I could always steer the conversation away whenever she brought up "nipple rouge" again. (For the record, she brought it up seven times.)

In the early 1980s, Sid Griffin, Greg Sowders, Stephen McCarthy, and Barry Shank formed the Long Ryders, bringing a Graham Parsons/late-era Byrds country feel to the growing L.A. psychedelic movement known as the "Paisly Underground." (To cement their ties to the Byrds, the Long Ryders even got ex-Byrd Gene Clark to sing on a song on their first full album.)

The teenage wannabe broker chick didn't care about any of that. The only thing she knew is that her boyfriend loved the tape, then broke up with her because she wouldn't agree to wear nipple rouge. Finally, when the second side of the tape was nearly done, she told me there was one more apartment she could show me. (Link -- with bonus panda dancing -- for Gmail subscribers.)


The last apartment she showed me was down a hallway that stunk from cat piss. I tried not to make a face, but I guess I failed. She smiled the kind of smile seen mostly these days on the faces of delusional contestants trying out for American Idol and said: "And the best thing about this place is you can have pets!"

I didn't rent any of the crappy apartments in Watertown. But I did drive into Harvard Square that evening and buy the first Long Ryders album.

As for the band, they were invited to open for U2 on the Joshua Tree tour, but were plagued by personnel problems and broke up instead.

I never saw the wannabe teenage broker chick again, so I never got to tell her that she got the best of the deal -- getting rid of the loser boyfriend and gaining a Long Ryders tape. In an alternate universe, the Long Ryders would have been huge stars and the wannabe teenage broker chick and her new boyfriend (the one who didn't care if she wore nipple rouge or not) would've been in the front row in front of 50,000 other fans. (And if she really wanted to be a broker, she wouldn't have to show apartments that smelled like cat piss.)


Bonus video -- The Long Ryders cover NRBQ's "I Want You Bad":

It's a Suicide to Choose

Another band that should've been huge.

If you lived in Boston (or almost anywhere in New England) in the mid-to-late 1980s, you couldn't escape from O Positive.

Their sound was laid back but insistent, desparate but hopeful, grounded but oddly ethereal (like a harder-rocking Death Cab for Cutie). The band -- led by singer/songwriter/guitarist Dave Herlihy and guitarist Alan Petitti -- performed up and down the East Coast, building buzz wherever they went. They signed with Throbbing Lobster (a Boston-based garage-oriented indie label) and released an EP in 1985 called Only Breathing, which was played a lot on cool local radio station WBCN, constantly on cooler station WFNX, and occasionally even on Boston's uncool stations. And while a lot of people compared O Positive to REM, it was clear that there was something entirely different going on.


The first track, "With You," was a tale of a relationship that seemed doomed from the start. I'd get lost in the song every time I heard it (and not just because the captivating intro lasts for over 40 seconds before the vocals kick in). At the time, I never could quite figure out if the singer was berating himself or his girlfriend with lines like "It's your five-week anniversary/Put a rope around my neck" or "Smoke a cigarette/Think it'll get you through it" and best of all: "I could love you/It's a suicide to choose." I bought the EP at the Newbury Comics upstairs in the Garage in Harvard Square in Cambridge (and picked up the great Don Dixon-produced Dumptruck album at the same time). And then I went downstairs and bought a tabouli and feta cheese stroller (a pita wrap that you could eat while walking around) from a place called Stuff-Its. (The Garage and Newbury Comics are still there, but Stuff-Its and O Positive are both long gone.) (Link for Gmail subscribers.)


O Positive switched to Link records for the 1987 EP Cloud Factory (and Link later released the two EPs together on one CD). I've always thought the highlight of Cloud Factory was the great song "Up, Up, Up" (which struck me as a sequel of sorts to "With You," with the same singer looking back fondly at the doomed relationship he tried to escape from in the earlier song). Epic signed the band soon after, eager to capitalize on their growing fanbase (and hoping to find a group that would be as influential as REM). But their 1990 album ToyboatToyboatToyboat sounded a bit too slick and watered-down and the band parted ways with Epic after disagreeing about their future direction. Another indie release and a live album and the band was done. Link for Gmail subscribers.)


Years later, I thought back on a woman I knew who loudly and violently denounced anyone who smoked as weak and pitiful. While I don't like smoking (and have never smoked myself), the virulence of her attacks was shocking. When I learned she'd been a heavy smoker herself, the attacks seemed even stranger. Millions of years after the fact, I remembered how much she'd scared me. And wondered if I was just to weak to love her. Suddenly, in a moment of crystal clarity, I understood what "With You" mean (at least to me) and why it stayed with me after all those years.

When it's a suicide to choose, a little part of you dies no matter what you do.


Unrelated Postscript: Dave Herlihy, who is a huge star in the alternate universe with the best music, is now an entertainment lawyer in this universe. But you can tell he's still cool because his photo on his website shows him posed in front of a shelf of law books with his guitar.

There is No Real Perfection

Someone in Badfinger must have done something awful in a past life.

When I was in High School and college, I was obsessed with the band Badfinger.

I might add that most of my college friends had musical obsessions, ranging from the fairly normal (Springsteen worshippers) to the obscure (Robyn Hitchcock aficionados) to the downright weird (Richard Harris, as a singer not as an actor). In that crowd, being a Badfinger freak didn't seem so strange.

Now, rarely in history has a band seemed as doomed as Badfinger. Yeah, they were discovered by the Beatles, signed to Apple Records, had a hit off a song Paul McCartney wrote for them, appeared on John Lennon's Imagine album, George Harrison's Concert for Bangladesh, and on Ringo's "It Don't Come Easy" single. In addition, they had a string of hits -- power-pop masterpieces with chiming guitars and great harmonies -- that remain classics to this day. But they also had a manager who ran off with all their money, multiple lawsuits, and a record company that pulled one of their greatest records a week after its release (and its rave review in Rolling Stone), then rejected their next record (again for financial impropriety, and again a minor masterpiece). Pete Ham, the group's leader and chief songwriter was so despondent that he hung himself, declaring in his suicide note that the group's manager was a "soulless bastard." Years later, Tom Evans, the group's other major songwriter would hang himself after being sued by a promoter.

And, although I seem to say this a lot in this blog, there's an alternate universe out there where Badfinger became huge stars, filling stadiums and selling millions of records well into the 1990s... and even if I can't live in that alternate universe, I'd give almost anything to be able to pick up their radio broadcasts.

But back in this universe, Badfinger's music was unavailable (except if you had enough patience and got lucky in used record shops). I haunted local used record stores for Badfinger albums and was thrilled when -- after at least six years of searching -- I was rewarded with my then-musical Holy Grail, a used copy (in very good condition) of Straight Up, their amazing 1971 album produced half by Todd Rundgren and half by George Harrison (who also plays the slide guitar solo on "Day After Day").

(Parenthetically, I should add that one day when my girlfriend at the time -- yes, the one who liked Michael Bolton -- called me and told me she'd found a copy of Straight Up exactly one month after learning that it existed. I very specifically recall thinking that she didn't deserve to own an album like that, that she hadn't sacrificed enough to find it, and probably wouldn't really be able to appreciate it.)

If the Badfinger saga sounds like something ripe for Behind the Music, it was (although, appropriately enough, Badfinger's Behind the Music seemed doomed -- it literally was years behind schedule and was scrapped three or four times before Paul McCartney agreed to appear in it and it was revived). Unfortunately, I didn't have cable when it first aired. It was rarely repeated (Behind the Music had mostly run its course by then) and has never been released on DVD. (And of course, VH-1 rarely shows anything other than dating shows these days, so I thought I'd never get to see it.)

And...
yet...
I still believe in the magic of the internet. So check it out before they take it down.

And in the meantime, here's a little taste (and those of you who know me might recognize that, yes, the opening guitar riff is the ringtone on my phone):


And if you're interested, Dan Matovina's sadly out-of-print book Without You: The Tragic History of Badfinger is pretty great... and taught me something about Badfinger I never knew before: I saw the last concert Tom Evans performed (in Providence, Rhode Island) before he killed himself.

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.)

Driving Through Snow with a Time Machine

Like most really weird things, this started late at night.

Driving through the snow, caravanning.

We weren't exactly heading to the same place, but there were mountains and the road was curvy.

I was driving a Chevy Citation, which was a gutsy little front-wheel drive car. And she was in a Jeep with four-wheel drive. I was 22.

It was dark and the road was slippery and I was listening to a cassette tape someone had thrown through a wormhole from the future and the tape was playing the long version of this song, the one that builds forever before the vocals start:


And as the tension built and built, she speeded up. And by the end of the song, I was at an intersection. And there was no way of telling which way she went.

So I got out of the car... and I looked down the road to the left: darkness and trees. A quiet town and a warm motel room on my way somewhere else. And the girl in the Jeep? Long gone.

And down the road to the right: the Jeep parked in front of a bar. A long conversation over pitchers of beer. Wonder and passion. And heated arguments. Long periods without talking and recriminations and massive hurt feelings. And more arguments and long silences. And I got back in the car and steered to the right.

Surely the wonder and passion would all the bad stuff. Right?

Wrong. Of course, it took years to figure out how wrong. Years that erased the magic and wonder. So I bought that Death Cab for Cutie cassette and built the time-machine and put it in the tape player of the Citation back when I was 22. But this time I wrote "this is a warning from the future" on the tape. That would get my attention, right?

And I stood there in the woods... all those years ago again.

And I watched the Jeep go right.

And waited.

Ten minutes later, the Chevy Citation pulled up. And I watched myself get out and look down both roads. And I wondered why I'd ever worn such a stupid hat.

And I heard this song coming from the tape deck. And knew I'd never pay attention to the warning. So I watched the Citation go off to the right. And hoped this version of me would figure out a better warning system.

When the Toe Rings, Don't Answer

Every girl I know has got some... soul.

What is it about girls with toe rings?

Either they're crazy and worship Motley Crue or they're tie-dyed hippies who worship at the bongwater of the Grateful Dead, or (if you're lucky) they're the geeky power pop grrrls with indie-rock retro glasses.

One summer, I lived near a used-record store located above a Chinese restaurant. I would go in there twice a week after work and browse through the "new arrivals" section. One evening, I saw a gorgeous redheaded girl with a toe ring. She bought a used record by the dBs, so I did too.

The record was great -- one of the original Albion ones -- filled with catchy tunes, good beats, and great harmonies. If there's a soundtrack to summer, this would have to be on it:


In an alternate universe, the dBs would have become superstars and the redheaded girl and I would have had a torrid love affair that lasted (on and off) for the better part of a decade. But, as I've said before, we sadly don't live in that universe. So all that summer, I waited for the redheaded girl in that used-record store that smelled of sticky red sauce and fried rice. She never reappeared. Over the years I bought all the dBs records I could find (but sadly didn't buy a near-mint copy of their "cassette in a can," which is now worth big bucks on eBay).

Years later, on impulse, I went back into that store again. The Chinese restaurant was gone, replaced by an Indian restaurant (which only lasted a few months). Over the wafting aroma of curry, I picked up a copy of the dBs album Like This on CD.

She's got soul but I don't know. Every girl I know has got some soul...

As I turned around, the redheaded girl was behind me. She looked at the CD and smiled. "I liked them better before Chris Stamey left," she said.

I nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah, me too! Hey, do you wanna-"

And she cut me off. "I've got a boyfriend." I looked down at her feet. She was wearing socks. Any toe rings she may have been wearing were cut off from public view. "But enjoy the CD."

I nodded sadly and paid for the CD. (Link for Gmail subscribers.)


The toe ring giveth... and the toe ring taketh away.

Just Like Moses Malone

Squint your eyes, tilt your head, and she's a superstar.

In an alternate universe, Karla DeVito is a superstar.

You may remember her from the video of Meat Loaf's "Paradise By the Dashboard Light" (although it was Ellen Foley who actually sang on the song). Or from her song "We Are Not Alone" from The Breakfast Club.

But whenever I think of Karla DeVito, I think of her goofy and amazing debut album Is This a Cool World... Or What?, which came with a poster that had doodles, photos from her childhood, and handwritten lyrics. And the music was pretty great, Cyndi Lauder-esque goofiness, great pop musicianship from players like Anton Fig, Paul Shafer, and G.E. Smith, and powerful vocals that sounded like the love child of Kate Bush and Linda Ronstadt delivering a message from God. The album had a goofy song about a female pirate (perhaps explaining Broadway appearances to come) and some great covers (CCR's "Almost Saturday Night," the Grass Roots' "Midnight Confessions").

And then there's the title song. Which celebrates the coolness of modernity (circa 1981): French sunglasses, call-waiting, and a "house for my mother, just like Moses Malone." And she even dresses like a hippy chick, a Bobby Soxer, Alice in Wonderland, and a sad clown in the video. I dare you not to like it. (Link for Gmail subscribers.)


Karla DeVito might easily have become the Queen of MTV, but instead she followed Linda Ronstadt onto Broadway for a revival of The Pirates of Penzance. To capitalize, Budweiser made a commercial with DeVito singing a version of "Cool World" mashed up with the then-current Bud jingle (link for Gmail subscribers):


A year later, DeVito married Robbie Benson (her Pirates co-star) and had two kids. She recorded a second album in 1986, but the songs weren't quite as sharp and Bob Ezrin's slick, synth-heavy production bludgeoned all the humor out of the record (which never made it to CD).

The other day, I dragged my vinyl copy of Cool World out of storage. The poster is frayed, the cover is worn, the price tag is partially shredded (but hanging in there). But the music is still amazing -- a goofy, fun artifact from the alternate universe and coolest of all possible worlds, just before Karla DeVito became the Queen of MTV.

Just like Moses Malone.

Every Poster in the Window Means No

For years, it was right by the freeway exit.

Next to a travel supply store. And a pharmacy that looked like it still had stock on hand from the late 50s.

And every time I passed it, I was struck by a small poster in the corner of the front window for a mid-80s album by Let's Active. I went into the store once, expecting a treasure trove of jangle pop, but finding a random and unexceptional random selection of vinyl records and CDs arranged with little rhyme or reason. The clerk had no idea why they had a 20-year-old Let's Active poster in the window (and also had no idea who Let's Active or Mitch Easter was). "I guess it's there because it's always been there."

Let's Active was a real band at first, then an every-changing cast of backing musicians hired on to realize the infectious pop music of Mitch Easter. Easter played in Sneakers with future dB Chris Stamey, then opened Drive-In Studios in 1981, where nearly every seminal jangle-pop record was recorded. Easter co-produced (with Don Dixon) the first two REM albums (which, for any music fan, would be enough to guarantee his place in the pantheon). Soon after, Easter's band Let's Active was signed by IRS Records. (Link for Gmail subscribers.)


The band -- Easter, Faye Hunter, and Sara Romweber -- released the Afoot EP in 1983 and the Cyprus album in 1984 (released together on a single CD in 1989). After Cyprus, the band imploded and 1986's Big Plans for Everybody was largely an Easter solo record. A real band was recruited in time for 1988's Every Dog Has His Day, which sounded more coherent and also sounded a lot edgier and less poppy (although it's hard to imagine any Mitch Easter song not being poppier than 90% of the music out there). When Let's Active failed to break out from college-radio cult status, it faded away in the 1990s. (Link for Gmail subscribers.)


In 2007, Mitch Easter released Dynamico, which simultaneously seemed classic and innovative (in the same way the Let's Active albums did in the 80s). In an alternate universe, this album would have sold a million copies the first week (and then usher in the resurgence of the music industry). At the very least, a poster from the album should have appeared in the window of that little record store near the freeway off-ramp.

Instead, the record store put up signs last year that it was closing soon. Part of me wondered if it was because the clerks had no idea who Let's Active was. Another part of me thought the store would always be there just because it had always been there. I meant to make it in for their going-out-of-business sale, but never made it (again, maybe if the clerks had known...). When I finally made it back to the store, the doors were closed and locked. Peeking inside, I saw that the record racks were gone -- but the Let's Active poster (now more than 20 years old) was still in the window. A month later the poster was gone -- replaced by a "This Space for Lease" sign.

Alternate Universe Prom

I never went to my High School prom.

Partly because I didn't have a girlfriend at the time. And partly because I hated getting dressed up. But mostly because of the music. Sappy power ballads and crappy "dance music" played by a third-rate band or a bored, clueless DJ? "Celebrate good times, C'mon!"? Thanks. But no.

So I didn't go. And I might never have given it a second thought. Except for the music (which I was sure sucked because most of my classmates had musical taste that ran the gamut from mainstream pap to dreck).

A few months go by and a friend of mine tells me I should've gone to the Prom, I would've loved it – the Prom theme was “White Punks on Dope.” By the Tubes. Which suddenly made sense to me. It was literally like a light bulb suddenly appeared, shining brightly, above my head.


See, I grew up in a college town filled with angsty, disaffected White kids whose parents worked at the local colleges. In my High School, we never bothered to read Faulkner because we were too busy reading Kurt Vonnegut. Political correctness may not have been born in my hometown, but it definitely bought its first free-range organic kale snacks there.

Knowing my Prom theme transformed my view of my hometown. So for years, I would brag about my hometown, using our Prom theme as proof of what an amazing, progressive place it was. My only regret? Not going to the Prom.

For more than 15 years, I told people that story... and everyone would chuckle or nod, amused at the idea of a school cool enough to select “White Punks on Dope” as their Prom theme (and perhaps secretly wishing they'd gone to my Prom, too).

Then, a few months ago, I tell a friend this story and she stares at me, confused, then asks what the Prom theme really was. "'White Punks on Dope.' By the Tubes," I say. She shakes her head sadly and looks at me with pity. "No way in hell that was your Prom theme. Proms are official school events. School officials have to approve the theme. And there's no school official who would approve a theme like 'White Punks on Dope.' No matter how cool and amazing you think your school was."

And then I realized the worst part: the High School friend who told me this months after the Prom must have been joking with me. And I didn't realize it. Maybe this person was cruel or just didn't want to take away my enjoyment by telling me the truth. (And I can't even remember who it was to double-check.)

Suddenly, the story I'd told myself and others for years is just wrong. And in retrospect, my High School is just a lot less cool.

But in an alternate universe, there is a school somewhere that would select "White Punks on Dope" and have the school officials approve it. I'd give almost anything to live in that world -- even go to the Prom.

We Didn't Start the Del Fuego

My nephew loves Dan Zanes.

Great songs fill the room. Their presence is a palpable force, charging the air molecules. When the great songs end, their sonic properties linger. Maybe you can't hear them anymore, but you can sense them in the air and it takes a while for that sense to dissipate.


One such song is "I Still Want You" by the Del Fuegos, from their 1985 album Boston, Mass. It's a great song about loss, love, and longing, which perfectly captures a mixture of promise, sadness, and regret in one amazing line:

The car we bought together just started to rust

If you grew up in the Northeast, where they over-salt roads in winter and the salt eventually eats through your car (especially if it's the type of old beater you and your girlfriend would buy), this might be the second saddest thing in the world. (The saddest is Dan Zane's voice and the certainty that, even though he might still want her, she's gone for good.)

When I split up with my girlfriend (with whom I moved from Boston to California), I thought a lot about three things: 1) the Del Fuegos, 2)how I drove the first car I ever owned (a '73 VW Beetle) through a snowstorm until six inches of snow came up under the floor mats through a rusted out hole in the floor, and 3) how no one in Los Angeles understands cars rusting (let along how sad that can make you feel). Relationships, like songs, linger in the air after they're finished.

In the mid-80s, there was a roots music boomlet (led by the Blasters, the Bodeans, Georgia Satellites, Lone Justice, and Los Lobos). The Del Fuegos (Dan Zanes, his brother Warren Zanes, Tom Lloyd, and Woody Giessmann) had a blend of bluesy garage rock that won them tons of fans -- first in Boston and then throughout the Northeast -- and got them got signed to Sire Records at the tail end of that boomlet. The band made three records with soon-to-be-superstar-producer Mitchell Froom (who later worked with Crowded House, Richard Thompson, Elvis Costello, Suzanne Vega, Bonnie Raitt, Randy Newman, Paul McCartney, Los Lobos, and many others). They were poised to break big nationally, following the route paved by Bruce Springsteen. And there's an alternate universe out there somewhere where the Del Fuegos became as big as U2 (and together they short-circuited the whole boy-band movement of the 1990s).

But not in this universe.

Here, they were one of several local bands featured in a strange series of Miller Beer commercials (Youtube link) where they claimed that rock 'n' roll is "folk music… pretty much, but, you know, that's cuz it's for folks."

Then they moved to L.A., hired hair stylists, horns, and chick singers. Half the band quit when the third album flopped. They changed labels and producers and made a fourth album that felt generic and tired. By the early 1990s, the band was done. Warren Zanes went back to school, became VP of Education at the Rock 'N' Roll Hall of fame (and eventually released a solo album in 2002). Dan Zanes made a few solo albums, got married, moved to Brooklyn, and eventually became a superstar. Making kids music. My nephew (who's 4) is a huge fan.

Talk about an alternate universe.