Music: Tracks and Trivia

Lots of musical topics on my mind this week: First and foremost, I just got Bruce Springsteen’s 4-disc box set Tracks last week, at Tunes, a local record store chain. It was a used copy in excellent condition for only $15.99. I couldn’t pass it up. Now, I’m not a rabid Boss-ophile like some folks I know, but I do like most of his songs. That said, I have to admit that this set is probably the best collection of unreleased rock songs I’ve ever heard. Most of these could easily have been included, as is, in any of Bruce’s albums. Just a thoroughly enjoyable collection of tunes, especially, of course, the ones that feature the E Street Band.

This coming week marks the 38^th anniversary of the Woodstock Festival, which I didn’t attend. But I did attend a festival in 1969 that was very nearly as good. Here’s my description as written for XPN’s Most Memorable Music Moments:

“The Woodstock Arts and Music Festival in August 1969 was such a generation- and culture-defining event that it completely overshadowed the festival that occurred just two weeks before: The Atlantic City Pop Festival at the Atlantic City Racetrack on August 1, 2, and 3, 1969. Call it a dress rehearsal for Woodstock, but without the mud. The lineup was every bit as impressive as the more famous festival’s was: Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Joe Cocker, Santana, Chicago, Joni Mitchell, The Byrds, The Mothers of Invention, Procol Harum, Paul Butterfield Blues Band, B.B. King, Dr. John, Little Richard, Sir Douglas Quintet, Canned Heat, Mother Earth, Iron Butterfly(!), Buddy Miles, Three Dog Night, The Chambers Brothers, and many others. . Since it was less than an hour from my home, it was a no-brainer for my friends and me to camp out nearby and groove to three days of fun and music. (And we were in the foreground of a crowd shot on the front page of the Philadelphia Bulletin!) The weather was perfect, and an estimated 110,000 people attended. Let others brag about being at Woodstock, but I have no regrets going to Atlantic City Pop instead!”

This past week also marks the 50^th anniversary of the national debut of American Bandstand. Below you’ll find a poem I wrote about that phenomenon a few years ago, after reading an article about former teen dancers from the show. Trivia questions:

1. Who was the original host of Bandstand, before Dick Clark?

2. On what Philadelphia TV station was the original program broadcast?

3. What is the name of the American Bandstand theme song, and who performed it?
(answers below)

Top Ten Music List of the Week: Ten Songs that Created Controversy

1. Society’s Child – Janis Ian (her original song from the 60’s about interracial romance)

2. Cop Killer – Body Count (‘nuff said…)

3. My Sweet Lord – George Harrison (he was sued – and lost – in a plagiarism case – unfairly, I still maintain)

4. Big Muddy – Pete Seeger (he sang this song, a thinly-veiled criticism of the Vietnam War, on the Ed Sullivan Show and was banned from future appearances)

5. Let’s Spend the Night Together – The Rollings Stones (another Ed Sullivan moment: they were forced to change the lyrics to “Let’s spend some time together")

6. Subterranean Homesick Blues – Bob Dylan (with this song, he was the first artist to “go electric” at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965, and was virtually booed off the stage)

7. Short People – Randy Newman (hard to believe this silly satirical ditty from the 70’s raised such a ruckus, but groups representing short-statured folks complained about it so much that it was banned from some radio stations)

8. Louie, Louie – The Kingsmen (rumors floated around for years about the unintelligible lyrics, which some claimed were “dirty” –they weren’t)

9. Girl You Know It’s True – Milli Vanilli (the kings of musical fraud – they were top 40 darlings till it came out that someone else was dubbing their vocals)

10. Not Ready to Make Nice – The Dixie Chicks (Natalie Maines’ answer to all the middle Americans who blackballed the girls for their anti-Bush comments)

Poem of the Week: as promised…

Bandstand

Kinescopes smudged gray and white
burn the screen like old dreams.
These are days for those who remember Dick Clark, standing avuncular behind the podium,
announcing the current hit, or the next big one,
as kids began to prowl the floor
in poodle skirts, bobby socks,
skinny ties and plaid jackets,
bouffants and pompadours bouncing in time.

In the camera, movement is the color –
the Stroll, the Cha-cha, the Bristol Stomp,
couples with names like Carmine and Angela,
some regulars, some fresh-faced newcomers
picked from the gaggle of hopefuls
outside the West Philly studio.
The Catholic girls wear sweaters over their uniforms,
so the nuns won’t scold them in school tomorrow.
Inadvertently, they start a fashion trend –
girls all over the country look for the cool dickie collars the kids on Bandstand wear,
unaware that they’re uniform shirts.

Now, years later, when they all get together
(most with grandchildren and Social Security)
they summon up good times and bad:
the fan clubs, teen articles, and the threats
received while slammed against their lockers
by kids that didn’t think them “cool.”
Their sighs waft to that time and back again,
as someone resurrects a jukebox –
Frankie Lymon, Bobby Darin, the Shirelles.
They partner up in the old combinations,
gliding across the diner’s checkered floor,
all the way back to seventeen.

(Answers to trivia questions: 1. Bob Horn. 2. WFIL (now WPVI), Channel 6. 3. “Bandstand Boogie” (various versions were used over the years, including Barry Manilow’s vocal version, but the original, most well-known theme on the national program was by Les Elgart. The tune was composed by Charles Albertine.)

Amazon, New Poet Laureate, Pirates, and Other Stuff.

I got an interesting e-mail today from Amazon.com. They invited me to join "Amazon Vine", an exclusive "club" for their most popular and helpful reviewers. I have 137 reviews posted on Amazon, mostly music reviews, and some DVD and book reviews as well. As a "Vine" member, I'll be getting free promotional releases and pre-releases (which I get to choose), with only the requirement that I write reviews for some of them. How cool is that?

My latest favorite CD is The Cat Empire's Two Shoes. It's almost as energetic and fun as the band was in person at the XPoNential Music Festival a couple of weeks ago. It will definitely be on my best-of-the-year list.

My youngest is in the midst of his two-week Boy Scout camp in Bucks County, and from all accounts he is having a swell time. In light of that, and as a public service, I am about to introduce a new feature: the Weekly Top 10. This is culled from the XPN website - I started a bulletin board thread a few months ago that's still going strong, where members suggest ten songs with a common theme. We've had some rather ho-hum themes, and some pretty creative ones too. So this week's Top 10 is:

Songs About Camping, Scouting, Hiking, or Similar Outdoorsy Activities

1. Honeymoon with "B" Troop - 10cc
2. Tent - Bonzo Dog Band
3. A Campfire Song - 10,000 Maniacs
4. Be Prepared - Tom Lehrer
5. Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah (Camp Grenada) - Allen Sherman
6. Fishin' Blues - Taj Mahal (my son's going for his fishing merit badge this week)
7. Battle of Kookamonga - Homer and Jethro (a spoof of "Battle of New Orleans" set at a kid's summer camp)
8. Poison Ivy - The Coasters
9. Under the Milky Way - The Church (sleeping under the stars)
10. Kumbaya - Pete Seeger (the ultimate campfire song!)

Thanks to my XPN boardie buds, jtd7, skatenlayton, cromag, and obi y kenobi for some of the suggestions.

Poetry: Charles Simic has just been appointed the new Poet Laureate of the U.S. Interesting choice - I like his work; it's whimsical and sometimes a bit surreal, but I never found a real emotional connection with it. I'm not saying he doesn't deserve the post - he does - but I was really hoping it would go to my favorite American poet who hasn't held the title yet: Yusef Komunyakaa.

Still not doing much these days poetry-wise - I've written hardly anything worthwhile in about a month, and I'm getting pretty disgusted about it. Still waiting on some submissions, the most noteworthy being Poetry magazine. Their non-response so far could be because (a) they're backlogged with a mountain of submissions, since they invited poets not previously published by them to submit, and haven't been able to respond as quickly as they promised; or (b) my poetry is so unworthy they won't even dignify it with a response; or (c) I did something horribly wrong, like inadvertently insult the editors in my cover letter, or forget to enclose a SASE; or (d) my poetry is so wonderful that they're holding it for possible publication. I think "a" is the most likely scenario, followed by "c" and "b".

Poem of the Week: I'll go with this one, which was published in The Fairfield Review (Winter 2003) and was also selected by them as an Editor's Choice:

Heart’s Pirate

There’s the story they tell on the Outer Banks
about Blackbeard, and the other privateers –
how they would hang lanterns on mules
and run them up and down the sandy beach.

This confused incoming ships
especially in the fog of night –
they thought they sighted a lighthouse
and sailed into the sound,

scraping the shoals, running aground,
helpless to the plunderers
who awaited ashore
and waded across to breach the gunwales.

That’s how it feels
to talk to you.

Sing-Song Sonnets and '07 CD's

Still feeling like I'm in the poetry doldrums, though I enjoyed hosting my Quick and Dirty peeps last week. We had a good meeting - Kendall arrived early so we got to b.s. about music before Anna and Andrea showed up. I offered up a sonnet for critique, which Anna, our formal verse maven, liked but suggested that the meter was "too perfect". I know what she means, and it's a weakness of mine when I write formal verse - I tend to try so hard to get the meter right (iambic pentameter, in this case) that it often comes off "sing-songy". Modern formal verse likes to mix things up a little, with enjambment and variations in the meter here and there, and the best formal verse doesn't even sound like it when read aloud. Anna's quite good at it. My sonnet will be better with some tweaking. I was also asked to approach Aaren Yates Perry, an area poet whose workshop I took at this year's Philadelphia Writers Conference, to be our guest poet when we begin our readings this fall at The Daily Grind in Mt. Holly. More on that later.

My latest publication is on a new online journal called Word Catalyst, edited by one of my Pathetic.org acquaintances, Shirley Allard. The poetry is a bit "traditional", but I'm happy to be part of it, and the August issue features two of my "older" poems, one about my Indian "e-pal" and one I wrote a few years ago about my grandmother, who passed away this year.
Also, I found out about the Shadow Poetry Biennial Chapbook Contest: I didn't win. I lost to a collection called Faerie Folk and Fireflies. Go figure. I did get 9th place, which entitles me to a 25% discount on a chapbook publication with them. I doubt I'll take them up on it, though.

Music: Finally, I'm getting up to speed on the 2007 album releases. My latest acquisitions were Hoots and Hellmouth (whom I saw at the Xponential Music Festival a couple of weekends ago) and Lily Allen's Alright, Still. I'm still deciding how much I like her, but she will probably end up on my ultimate best-of-the-year list. So far, my top faves are:

1. The Shins - Wincing the Night Away
2. Feist - The Reminder
3. Richard Thompson - Sweet Warrior
4. Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
5. Peter, Bjorn and John - Writer's Block
6. Son Volt - The Search
7. John Bulter Trio - Grand National
8. Wilco - Sky Blue Sky
9. Ryan Shaw - This Is Ryan Shaw
10. Loreena McKennitt - An Ancient Muse
11. Norah Jones - Not Too Late
12. Hoots and Hellmouth - Hoots and Hellmouth
13. The Smithereens - Meet the Smithereens
14. LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver
15. Various Artists - Endless Highway: The Music of the Band

I'm probably forgetting one or two others, and the list will certainly change before the end of the year, but there it is for what it's worth.

Poem of the Week: Oh, I don't know. How about this one, which was published in Mad Poets Review and The Wolf (UK) a couple of years ago:

Paris

There is no translation for silence.
For touch, there are volumes.

I have never astounded you, yet
you invite me with every look.

So often you are as close as pain.
My joints ache, as before a storm.

I am awash in your affection, but
the lightning always seems to miss.

Sad Poetry News, Happy Music News

It's interesting how we make friends these days on the internet. Most of us with some degree of life experience can intuitively tell when we're meeting someone genuine, and it's really possible to form a "friendship" electronically. That said, when you lose a friend you've met this way, it's almost as intense as losing any other friend. My Canadian poet friend Maureen Glaude passed away this past week after a long battle with cancer. She was 53. She was well-loved on Pathetic.org, and she was a talented and active woman who always had kind words for everyone. She was a very good poet, and I especially liked her haiku, so in her memory I wrote a haiku for her:

her desk lamp turned out -
the Ottawa skyline
is one light dimmer

You can visit her library here.

On a somewhat more upbeat note, I will have a few poems appearing in a new online journal called Word Catalyst, in August and September. More on that later.

Music: I attended WXPN's "Xpontential Music Festival" at Wiggins Park in Camden NJ on Saturday. (It's actually a 4-day festival, but I could only get away for one.) The weather was picture-perfect, and a couple of my friends and I enjoyed some really fine music. In order of favorites, I heard:

1. Los Lonely Boys - I knew I liked these guys - I have a few of their albums - and I'd heard how they can tear it up live. Now I know. They were fantastic! The three Garza brothers, on guitar, bass and drums, are amazingly talented musically, a mix of Santana, Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan, what they call "Texican rock n'roll". Some folks might think their performance was a bit showy and over the top, but they got everyone on their feet and got the biggest cheers of the night. And granted, they could be better lyricists. But man, that doesn't matter much when they play like they do.

2. The Cat Empire - The biggest surprise of the day for me. This six-piece band from Australia plays a blend of ska, rock, jazz and a pinch of hip-hop, with great percussion, keyboards, rhythm guitar, vocals and two trumpets. My son listened to them and said they sounded like what would happen if G. Love started a ska band. Sounds about right. They also remind me a little bit of Cake. They had lots of energy, and the majority of the XPN "boardies" I surveyed thought they were the best act of the day.

3. Will Hoge - This guy from Nashville had a cookin' roots-rock band, almost a Springsteen kind of vibe going on. The other pleasant surprise of the day.

4. Ryan Shaw - This young soul singer with a strong gospel background (and his frequent references to God made that obvious to the crowd) has an amazing set of pipes and sounds like a throwback to 60's and 70's Motown and Memphis sounds. No surprise, though, as I was already a fan - I downloaded his album from iTunes a few weeks ago. I got to meet him afterward and got an autograph - nice guy.

5. Hoots and Hellmouth - a local acoustic band that's getting some good national buzz, with an eccentric, passionate leader. Hard to describe them - kind of a bluegrass/folk-rock jam band. I liked them.

6. Grace Potter and the Nocturnals - I left during their set only because I was getting tired and wanted to beat the crowds, but she and her band were a good blues-rock unit. A bit anticlimactic though, after Los Lonely Boys tore up the place.

7. Martin Sexton - a excellent singer-songwriter, but someone had to be last on this list. Suffice to say I didn't hear anyone on Saturday I didn't like.

There was one downside to the day, but not personally. Some drunk in an SUV rammed through the gates and plowed into a trailer in the festival area. A couple of people were injured, but fortunately not seriously. All in all, it was a good day for music.

MMMM (Most Memorable Music Moments)

Supplemental music entry: WXPN just announced their "885 Greatest" list for this year: they've had great countdowns the last 3 years featuring the 885 greatest songs, albums, and artists of all time, as voted by the listeners. This year it's a more personal theme: "885 Most Memorable Music Moments". It's up to us to decide whether to include archival, historic moments that affected everyone, or personal moments that were special to the individual. Just off the top of my head, here's a chronological list of 10 moments that were most memorable for me:

1. 1964: The Beatles on Ed Sullivan (everyone my age will have this one on their list!)
2. 1967: Hearing Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band for the very first time.
3. 1969: Attending the Atlantic City Pop Festival (2 weeks before Woodstock and every bit as good, but without the mud).
4. 1969: Seeing Miles Davis at the Village Vanguard.
5. 1971: Getting a DJ job at my college radio station, WRLC, Livingston College (Rutgers U.)
6. 1986: Hearing my very first song on CD ("Bloody Well Right" by Supertramp) - I bought my first CD player a week later.
7. 1987: Winning a one-hour gig as "guest DJ" on WIOQ-FM in Philly. (They switched from adult alternative rock to oldies two weeks later - it wasn't my fault!)
8. 1992(?): Singing the chorus to an acoustic cover of "In Your Eyes" with Jeffrey Gaines (and the rest of the audience) at the WXPN "5-Star Night" at Mann Music Center in Philadelphia - the recording of that concert performance later became a popular radio hit.
9. 1999: Meeting my musical idol, Richard Thompson, at the WXPN "Singer-Songwriter Weekend".
10. 2005: Getting my first iPod.

Perhaps, if you are so inclined, you'd like to share your top musical memories here. Don't be shy!

Haiku and The Best Music Year

Good news on the publication front: I had four haiku published in an Australian print haiku journal, Paper Wasp - yesterday I got their Winter 2007 issue in the mail (I did a double-take -isn't it a little late for Winter 2007? Then I realized that it's winter now Down Under.) It's exciting because it's the first time I've had haiku published in a "legitimate" haiku-only journal. (I've had a few published a few years ago in journals that weren't exclusively for haiku, which means they are a little less selective in regard to the form.) I'd tried some of the better American haiku journals (Frogpond, The Heron's Nest, The Acorn, and Roadrunner) but to no avail. Then a poetry acquaintance on the poetry community site, Pathetic.org (who happens to be an excellent, award winning haiku poet) suggested I try Paper Wasp. Good advice - thank you, Agnes! Here are the haiku they published (you won't find them on their website, but maybe later when they feaure selections from their 2007 issues):

April snow
almost as white as
the apple blossoms

______________

slice a peach
surprise the sunrise
inside

______________

humid evening -
mosquitoes sing in my ear
before dinner

______________

morning rain -
under the weeping cherry
a dead robin

______________



Music: Downloaded from iTunes, Writers Block by Swedish band Peter, Bjorn and John (or "PB&J" as they're cleverly known) - really good album with an eclectic range of pop stylings. "Young Folks" is the breakout track, and after repeated listenings it's become a bit annoying (a bit on the "twee" side with a lost of whistling). But the rest of the album is definitely worthwhile.

WXPN, my favorite radio station on the planet, had a really fun programming day on Saturday - they played nothing but songs from 1967. Pop, rock, psychedelia, blues, jazz, country, folk, just about every genre. What a great year for music! Maybe I'm only saying that because i was 16 at the time, but still, I'll put that it up against any other when it comes to great music years. This was the year of the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's..., The Doors first album, Buffalo Springfield's second album, Arlo Guthrie's Alice's Restaurant, Aretha Franklin's "Respect", James Brown's "Cold Sweat", Jimi Hendrix's Are You Experienced?, Jefferson Airplane's Surrealistic Pillow, Cream's Disraeli Gears, and debut albums from The Grateful Dead, Velvet Underground, Big Brother and the Holding Company (Janis Joplin), and Procol Harum, and a whole bunch of classic Motown hits.

Still dealing with car woes, but won't bore you with the details. That's it for now!

Cars Redux

More car misfortune: Last Tuesday my son, who's only been driving regularly for about a month (to work and back mostly) was rear-ended about four blocks from home while stopped to make a left-hand turn. The woman who struck him said she was distracted by a young bicycler who threatened to swerve in front of her. The car, a 1992 Plymouth, is totaled. Fortunately, no one was hurt. Ironically, the other driver is a personal injury lawyer, but she admitted from the beginning that it was her fault, and her insurance company intends to pay for everything. Of course, we'll be lucky to get more than $2000 for the car, even though it had only about 86,000 miles on it. So now we are in the unusual position of having had two serious accidents in the family within 10 days of each other (neither of which was our fault). Fortunately again, our insurance has a rental car provision, so my wife and I are driving his-and-hers Ford Focuses until things get sorted out with our cars. And we still have the other two cars which the sons will drive.

Not much new on the poetry front - still in a major creative slump. Waiting to hear on my other submissions. Picked up a volume of poetry by A.R. Ammons which I intend to read.

Music: I just saw the documentary The Devil and Daniel Johnston - fascinating bio of a creative but tortured soul - sort of like Brian Wilson but even further out there. He grew up in West Virginia in a fundamentalist Christian household but always aspired to be a songwriter. artist and musician. He chronicled his life from his early teens through a series of home movies and self-produced music tapes, and he had a history of mental illness - mainly manic depression with paranoid delusions. But he developed a cult following largely from his tireless self-promotion - he serendipitously landed in Austin, Texas in the mid-1980's just as that city's music scene was exploding, and succeeded not only in winning some awards at the annual music festival, but even insinuating himself onto MTV. But mainstream fame always eluded him, despite having influential fans like Kurt Cobain and Yo La Tengo. He sabotaged a generous major label contract because he was too paranoid at the time to sign it, and he went through a period where he ranted on about the Devil (hence the movie's title). But it's a fascinating film, and he's had a bit of redemption in the end. See it if you can.

Most recent album acquisitions:
1. Dog Problems by the Format (bombastic power pop - think Queen and Jellyfish with a dash of Squeeze thrown in, and a bit of old-style dance hall music)
2. This is Ryan Shaw by Ryan Shaw (a throwback to the old 60's and 70's Memphis soul sound, and he's got a great voice to carry it).

That's all for now - I'll give you my latest poem, a "double dactyl" (a humorous form invented by Anthony Hecht and Paul Pascal) about our "leader of the free world".

Dubya Dactyl

Hubble-yoo, bubble-yoo,

President “W”,

malaprop champ, no one

else can compete.

His forte’s not to speak

extemporaneous –

with foot-in-mouth one can’t

think on one’s feet.