"Some say she's from Mars or one of the seven stars"

I saw The B-52's last Saturday night at their sold out 930 Club concert. They're doing a small tour to promote their first album of new material in 16 years, Funplex. It's actually pretty good. "Juliet of the Spirits" is my favorite and an apt title, since, very early on, the band briefly billed themselves as Fellini's Children. They drew as much sartorial inspiration from the famous Italian director as they did from Southern secondhand culture.


Like many folks my age, I first heard the B-52's nearly two decades ago through their massive commercial breakout single which was completely inescapable in late 1989 and at any subsequent gathering of 10 or more Caucasians, particularly at a wedding. The band, while set for life financially in no small part because of this pervasive song, has subsequently apologized (sincerely, I believe) for its frequent overplaying. Hey, it was legitimately a lot of fun the first, oh, 59 or so times I heard it.

Despite or because of this ubiquitous hit, I explored their early catalog. The summer of 1990 is when I first discovered their still best material - their strange, tacky, and irresistible eponymous debut from 1979. Few albums make me smile as spontaneously and genuinely as this one does. Kate Pierson and Cindy Wilson's angelic harmonies take flight without wings, without wheels...

I've been to many, many concerts in different kinds of venues over the years, but nothing I've ever experienced at a show prepared me for the awesomely goofy and, yes, even cathartic power of "Rock Lobster" performed live. (This is the giddy song that John Lennon famously said made him want to make music again.)



They also performed "Private Idaho". (I'm pretty sure my grandmother and an aunt or two, distinguished Dixie ladies, all of them, had wigs just like Kate Pierson is wearing.)



At the concert, it was a thrill to be directly in front of the lovely Ms. Pierson, whom I've crushed on since that same summer 18 years ago. Maybe it actually was a rainy afternoon in 1990 when I first heard Iggy Pop's "Candy"...



It was a little less than a year later when I heard Kate guesting with some fellow Athens, GA residents here.

"Planet Claire" has always been one of my favorite songs. Sci-fi theme music serrated by surf guitar. Genius. Weird and wonderful, it's inspired nerdish grad students to noodle around online when they should be writing comparative papers and wigging out simultaneously.



On the eve of her improbable 60th birthday, right in front of her, I was completely enraptured as she sang sirenlike in otherworldly stage lights. Wow. Thank you, Kate. I'll take you to my leader now...

"I turned to look, but it was gone"

Insert your own "When Pigs Fly" joke here.

Somewhere, David Gilmour is still doubled over laughing like hell. They reunited for Live 8 a few years back, performing together as Pink Floyd for the first time in two and a half decades, but he and Roger Waters had one of the most acrimonious splits in pop music. Moreover, while he's still got the rights to the name, Gilmour also has some impressive friends willing to step up when he needs a vocalist.

When You Wish Upon a Star

I've been in Orlando this past week for a conference at the Disney Contemporary Resort. From my sixth floor balcony, I can see the Cinderella Castle in the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World. It can't be a third of a mile from where I'm sitting now keying my laptop. I've watched fireworks every night.

In my 36 years (I'm exactly as old as WDW, by the way), I've somehow missed Uncle Walt's theme park, but I'm finally here. It's probably a good thing I didn't go when I was younger. What about this next creepy early 70s commercial would make any child want to come near this place? (Aside from getting the chance to rough up that snotty Peter Pan?)

I did enjoy one admittedly spectacular night in the Magic Kingdom, taking in two classic attractions. The famous "Pirates of the Caribbean" theme ride, enhanced with additions from the successful (but eventually bloated) movie franchise:



I'm not really an amusement park ride kind of guy, so I probably had no business getting on Space Mountain. I thought it would be a quaint, somewhat kitschy tour through the cosmos. I waited in line for an hour while gradually realizing, through posted warning signs and the whoops of prior riders, that I was instead getting on a twisting, diving roller coaster that tops out at roughly 30mph. That may not sound fast, but in near pitch darkness, it sure felt pretty damn fast.

How Many More Years?

How many more years can they keep it up? Indefinitely, if you ask them.

Saturday afternoon, I went with a couple of friends to the Smithsonian's Udvar-Hazy Center, an extended wing of the National Air and Space Museum. We saw, in IMAX, Martin Scorsese's new concert film Shine a Light documenting a Rolling Stones 2006 concert at the Beacon Theatre on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It's no Last Waltz, but it's extremely entertaining.



I've seen Elvis Costello a couple of times at the Beacon, once way up in the back of the third balcony tier and later on the ground level not too far from the stage. It's a great venue for an intimate concert. I always enjoyed looking up at the marquee on my way back up Broadway when I worked in in Midtown back in the early '00s.

Seeing the band play in IMAX was such a visceral experience, it's honestly hard to describe. Imagine sixty feet tall musicians, and you'll begin to have some idea.

Speaking of giants, during the scene when Buddy Guy guests on the Stones' cover of Muddy Waters' "Champagne and Reefer", I smiled and recalled how, way back in 1965, they refused to play on an ABC show called Shindig unless the one and only Howlin' Wolf, a blues master with a tremendous influence on rock music, could peform, too. This was the Wolf's only national television appearance. Notice how the Stones meekly (and wisely) remain seated nearby in reverence.

He later went on to eat every one of those wiggling white girls alive.

Record Store Day

Saturday April 19th was Record Store Day. If you didn't get to on the actual day itself, go to an independent music retailer sometime soon. Those places are a lot of fun for a number of reasons, and not just the passive-aggressive clerks who will brutally mock of your assumed lack of taste and/or knowledge. We have a number of great ones in the DC area. (I work right next to an Olsson's I stop in frequently...at least it's not Target or Best Buy.)

37 Record-Store Clerks Feared Dead In Yo La Tengo Concert Disaster

"Lots of people talking but few of them know...Soul of a woman was created below"

So, like, which of the following photos feature dudes and which, like, feature chicks?

Whoa. I'm...I'm...well, you know what I am.

It was a rocking Friday night at the State Theater in Falls Church as a sold out crowd took in Lez Zeppelin's performance of the legendary first album in its entirity. The last time I saw the ladies, at the same place, back in 2005, the venue was half to two-thirds full and they played a greatest hits set. This time, it was sold out and packed as they tracked through the eponymous 1969 debut. (The one with the big flaming d**k on the cover.) There are probably hundreds if not thousands of Zeppelin tribute bands, but gleeful gender subversion is Lez Zep's key appeal which likely makes them the most interesting as well as the most commercially successful. They're like Camille Paglia's most fevered wet dream not involving Madonna and/or herself.

I've blogged previously about Zep's quiet reunion late last year as well as what I think of Raising Sand, 2007's collaboration, produced by T-Bone Burnett, between Robert Plant and Alison Krauss. (I'll see all of them Friday, June 13th, at Merriweather Post Pavilion.)

From the nuanced English folk balladry of "That's the Way" from the underrated (and my favorite) Led Zeppelin III album...



to the swooping, flourished stomp of "Kashmir" off the epic Physical Graffiti ...



There are considerably worse ways to kick off your weekend. You can't beat appealing women playing Zep.

Danny Federici

Danny Federici, all the way to the left in the above photo, was Bruce Springsteen's friend and musical collaborator for four decades. He passed away yesterday in New York after a three year battle with melanoma.

Having seen "Phantom Dan" behind the keyboards at many E-Street concerts, most recently this past fall on the Magic tour, I, like countless other fans, am deeply saddened by this loss. As anyone who's been to a Springsteen show can passionately attest, it's an electric family revival hearing this material performed live.

Here's the goodbye at Danny's last show with the E-Street Band, on November 19th, 2007 ,before he took a leave of absence last fall for cancer treatment:




I had just seen them in concert, with Danny, a week earlier in DC. I'm wearing my 2007 tour baseball jersey in memoriam today at work. I dare HR to say something to me (it is casual Friday).

A clip from Danny's surprise brief return to the stage last month in Indianapolis:




"So let's take the good times as they go
And I'll meet you further on up the road"

RIP, Danny. Thanks more than I and hundreds of thousands of other E-Street fans could ever say for your significant contributions to some of the best music I've heard and performances I've ever seen.

"Anyone can understand the way I feel"

On this historic day, sixty-one years ago, Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier to become the first black player in Major League Baseball. With the Nationals' brand new stadium in the District, the Caps in the NHL playoffs, and the Wizards threatening to do...something, these are exciting times for professional sports around the Potomac!

(Uh, nevermind that the Nats only just recently broke a nine game losing streak. This is Washington, DC. What, if anything, do you honestly expect to work correctly here?)

Anyway, Tuesday is opening night for the Alexandria Co-Ed Softball League. Less historically, I'm coaching my third season for our Academy softball team. As thrilling as Robinson's Brooklyn Dodgers were, they weren't the archetype for my team. No, my team sadly has another template:

Yeah, whatever happened to them, huh?

Among other area assocation and non-profit teams, we will play PBS twice this season. Last year, as you might've read, we had a bench clearing but ultimately thoughtful brawl with the mighty Public Broadcasting System. Charlie Rose got up in my face but I kicked dirt on his big round table, so he backed down. Not before I plugged him with my latest book, however.

I Sing The Body Electric

Walt Whitman is profiled on the latest episode of PBS' American Experience. You can watch it free online while you sound your Barbaric yawp or whatever it is you literary weirdoes like to do.

On April 14th, 1865, President Lincoln was assassinated at the Ford Theater in Washington DC. Lincoln and Whitman were crucial contemporaries at our nation's darkest hour. The latter's famous elegy is analyzed and celebrated here via a Library of Congress webcast.

One of the first books Gwen and I read together when we began dating three years ago was Michael Cunningham's Specimen Days. The bonding we experienced, as well as other poignant memories I have from my travels though life, will keep Whitman forever close to my soul.

"Reachin' out for something to hold..."

Alan Hurwitz, with the North Star Writers Group, articulates my similar concerns on this most recent Obama gaffe:

"Does he understand that some people who like their guns and believe in the Second Amendment do so for reasons other than their frustration? In fact we ought to be happy that more of those guys aren’t more frustrated, with their loaded weapons at their sides.

"Does he mean that if I have strong religious beliefs and want to keep my guns, that I’m also against blacks? Or am I just against someone who doesn’t understand my point of view? Now that’s frustrating. This last piece carries with it the first suggestion of sour grapes I have heard from this very centered man and candidate.

"These statements caused me some concern, even as a strong supporter. I can imagine the reactions of people who might have already had their doubts, especially if those doubts were about the seriousness of his religious belief, or his desire to understand the positions of the working class people, whose votes he needs just now to clinch the nomination and avoid the wrecking of his party and devaluation of its nomination for the presidency at Hillary’s hands."

This one could be pretty serious. If this doesn't somehow lead to an even more contentious , fractured, and, yes, embittered Denver convention, then against McCain, coupled with Reverend Wright-gate, Democrats could be looking at an even tougher general election this fall.

Rise to Vote, Sir...Do Geese see God?

So Dylan won a Pulitzer. Well deserved, I say...

...but can popular music's premiere poetic genius do an entire song in palindromes? The establishment can keep on marginalizing Weird Al, but that's just going to make his many contributions to the national dialogue ultimately more meaningful.

"Throw a little Hot Rod Red in there..."

Monday night, I hope to get to Politics and Prose Bookstore here in Washington, DC, for an author talk and signing. David Hajdu will discuss his book The Ten Cent Plague - The Great Comic Book Scare and How It Changed America. I haven't finished it yet, but what I've read so far is good. I've previously read and recommend Hajdu's Positively Fourth Street which detailed the Greenwich Village Folk Scene in the early 60s. Dylan doesn't come off too well, as I recall, but I suppose he might've been something of a jerk in those days. Maybe not as much as the book indicates, but still.

Anyway, I haven't collected comic books in over twenty years, but I still enjoy classic hardbound versions of titles I read back in the 80s. I especially enjoy contemporary graphic novels, as well. My Mad Magazine archives back then probably would've rivaled Bart Simpson's, if not Al Jaffee's personal stash. Bill Gaines, creator and editor of Mad, played an important role in the pop culture landscape of the 40s and 50s, especially, and consequently in Hadju's book.

On a related note, in a little less than a month, on May 2nd in America, one of the most anticipated summer movies premieres: Iron Man.

Co-Created by Stan Lee, Iron Man was another key character in the early 60s revolution of more nuanced, flawed superheroes such as the more famous X-Men and Spider-Man.



Iron Man had an adventure in Vietnam (the film adaptation alters this to Afghanistan). The character's alter-ego, billionaire engineer and industrialist Tony Stark, was also an alcoholic. Pretty serious stuff for an alleged kiddie book, but Marvel pushed the envelope again (as Hadju's book details) after the crackdown that led to the Comics Code Authority.


Casting troubled but brilliant actor Robert Downey, Jr. as Stark was a masterstroke of marketing and talent. (Among others, noted professor, pundit, and comics enthusiast Larry J. Sabato lobbied heavily for the role.) I hope this film plays not just to the fan boys but to a broader mainstream audience and a franchise results. Downey could use the hit (and stabilizing work); Marvel, who has dealt with bankruptcy recently , could use the solid revenue stream. Iron Man is the first major film adaptation Marvel has financed through its own production company. Previously, they've sold the rights to the characters and only received licensing money from ancillary products.

Comics have come a long way and their impact on popular culture half a century after the era discussed in Hadju's Ten Cent Plague is tremendous. Worthy of a whole other book, in fact.

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The Night James Brown Saved Boston

On this weekend marking the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., VH-1 decided to briefly abandon its ratings driven and often tawdry descent into incessant and embarrassing reality programming with a great new music documentary: "The Night James Brown Saved Boston". (Remember, at one time in the 20th century, and even some of the 21st, VH-1 used to be about actual music.) NPR discussed this documentary this week.

I blogged about MLK earlier this year regarding pop music's impact on and reaction to Black Power as well as King's nonviolence movement.

As the documentary explains, while other American cities and urban centers were descending into chaos after King's killing, James Brown helped keep Boston from its own inferno.

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Here's a bit more about 60s Black Power:




Excerpts from King's last speech on April 3rd:



Lastly, some raw footage from Boston '68 with James Brown:

"Living Well is the Best Revenge"

After a few days immersion in Accelerate, their first album of new material in four years, I'm pleased to report that R.E.M. has officially returned to form. Peter Buck, despite the best efforts of his arguably more listless bandmates, flipped the giant studio recording switch from "SUCKS" to "DOES NOT SUCK".

Whew.

"This bores me. Is anyone up for a game of basketball?"

Prince is the purple elephant in the room regarding all other Minneapolis musicians. Far and away, he is the most influential, the most critically and commercially successful artist originally hailing from the Twin Cities. Dave Pirner has yet to accept this simple truth and consequently wanders third tier clubs across the country and drinks bitterly to this day.

I called Prince a few times last week to try and meet up. Charlie Murphy gave me his number. The Artist never returned my calls, though. I probably shouldn't have drunk dialed him and slurred "Batdance" into his voicemail, huh? Yeah, probably. I always blow these opportunities. Plus now his phalanx of Paisley Park lawyers will probably sue me. I don't care, though. Sign O' The Times is still one of the best albums of all time.

The Replacements

One of the highlights of my Minneapolis trip was getting a personal tour of famous Twin Cities rock music landmarks courtesy of one of the nicest, most knowledgeable guys I'm privileged to say I know.

I met ChrisK, as I've known him online for several years now, through the Elvis Costello discussion list or "The List" as we call it. Most everybody I've met through this forum is as bright, eclectic, and fascinating in person as they are online. Chris is no exception. A Minnesota native and longtime Minneapolis resident, he very generously drove me all around the Twin Cities showing me lots of spots I'd wanted to see, especially the legendary First Avenue, where most every Minneapolis musician worth anything (and several that aren't) has played, including a diminutive polymath with a penchant for royal colors. (Most of the interior music sequences in Purple Rain were shot at First Avenue.)

ChrisK is maybe if not definitely the biggest Replacements fan in the world, too. The Mats, as they're often known, are one of the most influential yet self-destructive bands to emerge from the Minneapolis scene in the 80s. I only know them moderately well, so it was refreshing to get insight into still a mostly cult band from a passionate native rather than a pedantic music "expert". The latter, professional or more frequently amateur wannabees, are often primarily concerned not with imparting the joy and thrill of the music but rather appearing way more knowledgeable than you (and they usually aren't). Generally, with these types, you try not to roll your eyes at myriad, conversation-killing esoterica and minutiae as they intentionally or not suck the fun out of your own appreciation for a band and its material.

But I digress. The point is, Chris isn't remotely like this. He knows how to talk to people about his town and his band in an honest and enthusiastic manner. I was grateful for our time together, as it enhanced the trip immeasurably.

When I told Chris we were staying at a bed and breakfast between 24th and Bryant Avenue, he told me I happened to be right on a legendary Replacements street. Moreover, we were two doors down from the Stinson house where the band sits on the cover of their 1984 Let It Be album.

Well, damn, I thought. So I ran out and took some photos. Here's a shot of where they're at on the cover:


The bed and breakfast where we stayed is obscured to the right in this next photograph. Check out this frankly amazing Photoshop rendition of the Let It Be album cover seamlessly integrated into the photo. (Computers, I tell you...)

Here's Gwen in a similarly thoughtful yet lackadaisical pose on the steps:

Chris recommended I stop in Treehouse Records on Lyndale Avenue to get a copy of Let It Be at the store where the Replacements recorded some of their earliest material in the basement. Here's a photo I took from across the street:

I bought a copy of The Replacements: All Over But the Shouting: An Oral History right there at ground zero for the band. Across the intersection from this store is Minneapolis' legendary CC Club.

The CC Club is another key iconic Minneapolis music landmark. Chris and I sat at the bar talking a Thursday night away right where singer/songwriter Paul Westerberg is in this video for "Achin' To Be".



It was a great trip and I can't thank Chris enough for giving me as cool a tour of the Twin Cities as he did. Hope to see you there again, and if you're ever in the Mid-Atlantic, I owe you, pal.