jukeboxgraduate.com

the dolls @ cb's, 3-28-06

I couldn't get out of the house and so resigned myself to sitting at the bar or something, because there was no way I was getting there until after 6, and the show was at 8, and and and.

And as I walked down Bleecker St. from the 6, I couldn't see a line. I just assumed it had gotten horrific and was blocking the doors to the mission upstairs and the gallery so they moved it down.

But no. It was well after 6 when I got there and THE LINE WASN'T EVEN PAST THE FRONT DOOR OF THE GALLERY. I know it's a school night, but, c'mon.

So I ended up sitting on the stage, completely unprepared, feeling ridiculously, ashamedly under-dressed for the occasion, wishing I'd brought the good camera, but felt happy for my earplugs and my tiny little digital and CBGB and what's left of the Dolls and Sami Yaffa singing along to "Private World" like he probably did when he was 15, and Debbie Harry in the audience, and what sure looked like Martin Rev in the mosh pit, and knowing some of the people around me for the better part of 10 or 20 years. I am lucky, jaded, infuriatingly spoiled, and blissfully grateful, simultaneously.

flickr set of the show here
Irving Plaza 05 review

reminder

I really, really need to remember that I'm going to see the Dolls at CBGB tomorrow night.
I also need to remember that the L train is not running after midnight for the next two weeks.
But it would help greatly IF I COULD REMEMBER THE FIRST ONE

the jukebox project #1: The Jackson Five - "I Want You Back"

I wish I could remember the exact moment, pinpoint the moment between not knowing about rock and roll and suddenly being consumed by it. I remember living in Baltimore at age 4 and playing with my brother's fire truck in the living room, and then my next memory is living in Michigan, headed for the beach, and having my little black sand-encrusted GE AM radio permanently attached to my wrist.

But I also remember one Saturday afternoon, glued to American Bandstand, the five of them, dressed in rhinestones and satin and velvet, stacked up in order of height, so adorable --

The Jackson Five.

The way I remember it is probably not the way it happened, or is a mélange of different viewings and my imagination. In my mind, the music starts, that hand running down the keyboard, their backs are to the audience, and then one by one, their arms come up in the air as they spin around and begin to dance. All the while, that innocent, infectious riff plays behind it, the riff that says SMILE!, the riff that says, DANCE!

Which is what it made me want to do, for the first time, in a grown-up way, not in a "You're so cute, put on a show" way. I craved rhythm and longed for the first time for my skinny gangly limbs to cooperate. I wanted to be cool. This was my portal to being a teenager, like my next-door neighbor Ann, who was 15 or 16 and babysat us, who had a boyfriend with a sparkly orange sherbet-colored Camaro, and had gorgeously long and perfectly straight hair just like Cher (while my mother insisted on chopping mine off somewhere right below my ears). Saturday afternoon, when she came home from shopping, she would open her bedroom window to serenade the neighborhood (such as it was) with Edgar Winter's "Frankenstein" at an ear-splitting volume. I wanted to be her so badly it hurt.

Forget the Osmonds, the DeFranco Family, Bobby Sherman and the other teen heartthrobs. Forget, even, my first true love, David Cassidy. This was what I wanted all along. My best friend, Linda Fisher and I would practice the Jacksons' dance steps in the playground at Hollywood Elementary School. We would hide in the little alcove behind the fifth grade classrooms and practice every recess. She could dance and I could not, mostly because she had a brother in high school who kindly would show her the moves. She didn't care so much about the Jacksons -- she was listening to her brother's singer-songwriter records, which did nothing for me -- but she loved to dance. After school, I would practice by myself in my bedroom until the floor bounced and the record skipped and scratched (a lesson learned) and I had to balance a penny on the turntable arm (I was SEVEN, give me a break). My mother would yell at me to take it outside and so I would perform in the backyard for my brother and sister, a captive audience.

I split my radio listening between WLS, across the lake in Chicago, and at night, Detroit radio. The former was still bubblegum pop, and the latter is where I heard the Jacksons and Curtis Mayfield and Al Green and Marvin Gaye. I dutifully wrote down the names of the songs I liked, and then rode my bike to the library to look for the record albums, or would patiently wait until my mother went to the grocery store. Next door was some kind of general merchandise store and they sold 45's out of their tiny music department for 44 cents. I would dutifully pick up the top 100 list each week, take out my pink spiral notepad and ask for the names of the songs I had heard, written down in purple ink. Don't worry, I was not that cool. I was still buying Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods and the Sweet ("Little Willy" got banned from my house by my father after a Saturday I played it 10 times in a row) along with "Freddie's Dead" and "What's Going On".

My parents had skipped me a grade, and that always made me slightly on the edge, not the outcast but kids not sure where or how I fit in. But I knew about the Jackson Five and even about bands I didn't like or care about. My mother, beginning a tradition that continues to this very day, had seen a magazine in the grocery store with the Jackson Five on the cover and bought it for me, and began bringing home copies of Tiger Beat or 16 or the other teen photo glossies. So I knew the names of the brothers and the titles of the songs, I could tell you their favorite colors and what they liked in a girl and their favorite snack food. At lunchtime, I would sit in the cafeteria and recite this information matter-of-factly, by request, while munching on a carrot stick. I didn't become the cool kid overnight, but I discovered that my possession of this information made my classmates grant me a respectful distance, since I clearly had found a bridge into a world that was still beyond them. It was that first drive to go beyond, to want more than just what I heard on the radio.

And slowly, I could almost pull off the moves, not as well as Linda could, but well enough to perform them together with her in the middle of the playground next to the monkey bars. We weren't putting on a show so much as we were just confident enough to move our practice area out into the public eye.

It was the first moment when I became "That Girl Who Likes [insert name of band here]." It was the first time I was obsessed with something that no one else around me understood, that I could barely find words to describe. It was the first time I felt that something was mine and mine alone.

My favorite part, still, is at the very very end as it's fading out, when Michael abandons his sweet falsetto and just SCREAMS: "OH! OH! OH! I want YOU back!" Over and over again, I would move the turntable arm just to hear those last 30 seconds, the 30 seconds of sheer ebullient excitement that captured everything I felt about the song.

Almost 20 years later, I was driving from Seattle to New Jersey and back again, and on the way back west, I route myself up from Indiana into Michigan, and try to drive the roads back to our old house from memory. I parked out front and talked to my father via cell phone about how big the trees were and how small the house seemed. The sidetrack was more out of curiosity and because the place was so out of the way, there would be no reason to be near there accidentally. But the emotions hit me, hard, not because it was my birthplace or because I had lived there all that long (our sojourn in Michigan was only five years), but because (and I am stealing this from something I wrote about that trip) that was the place where the girl I would become was born.

The girl in the backyard, learning to dance to the Jackson Five.

DEAR BRUCE #2

Dear Bruce:

In the name of all that is good and holy, why are you not making a record with Sam Moore while you still can? You missed out on your chance to work with Wilson Pickett. You can go on tour and sing "Froggy Went A'Courtin'" when you are too old to hang upside down on the microphone stand. Sam ain't getting any younger, and La Bamba and Pender are going to be in LA with Max and Conan before you know it. Get the horns together while you still can, and pull off that rhythm and soul project NOW. That is a show I would be standing at the box office every day for.

Love to Patti and the kids.

Best,

me.

the jukebox project

THE BACKGROUND:

My good friend Alan is known for his party mixes. For his 40th birthday, the party favors weren't a mug or a shot glass, but rather a carefully constructed cd mix that adhered to specific guidelines and rules. Let's just say that a gauntlet was thrown down at that moment. I drove home so engrossed in thought regarding what would be on my own compilation in a year's time that I got pulled over for a speeding ticket.

I managed to get my list defined in time for my 40th birthday, but didn't have enough time to manufacture and produce the finished product. So my 40th playlist didn't make it much further than iTunes, but I've always regretted that I didn't get a chance to put together liner notes for this project.

Over the last year, I've had the privilege of seeing Nick Hornby perform readings in concert with my beloved Marah. The format of the show is fairly simple: Nick puts together a handful of pieces about songs (a la his Songbook project). He reads, Marah play the song, repeat. If you dig Hornby, it's thrilling; if you like both Hornby and Marah, it's sheer fucking brilliance. I've been lucky enough to see them perform together at least three times now, and we were going to head for Oxford, Mississippi later this month to see it yet again. (Talk about literary mojo.)

However, the plans didn't work out, and to console myself, I'd been listening to some of those Hornby/Marah shows. This brought me back to my idea, long ago, of when I'd be famous enough to write my own version of Songbook.

And then I decided: why not just do it now?

So I present to you -- The Jukebox Project: 40 songs, 40 weeks, 40 essays. I'm going to aim for one a week, but no less than two per month. In order.

THE RULES:

• No more than one song per artist. Otherwise, to quote Alan, the compilation would likely be in danger of becoming Bruce Springsteen's greatest hits.
  
• The songs were chosen for one of the following reasons: it's not so much about favorites as it was significance in my history with or discovery of that artist, or what I considered to be definitive. I also kind of took a cue from Alan here, in that he was going to be handing the disc out to a large group of people, many of whom may not have been familiar with some of the artists on this list. This obviously did not turn out to be relevant to me, but it was behind the selection at the time I was making it.
  
• Finally, and most important for me: the order in which the artists appeared on the compilation corresponded to the order in which I took them to heart. In some cases, discovery was almost simultaneous (for example, the punk years), but (not to get too Rob Gordon here), it wasn't that hard to remember how I arrived at point A, B or Q.
  
• These had to be core artists. They had to be artists I was utterly obsessed with or engrossed in at one time in my life.
  

I will elaborate more on these guidelines as the essays roll out.

THE SONGS:

1. I Want You Back - Jackson 5
2. School's Out - Alice Cooper
3. Get It On (Bang a Gong) - T. Rex
4. I Want to Hold Your Hand - Beatles
5. Subterranean Homesick Blues - Bob Dylan
6. Naked Eye - The Who
7. Slit Skirts - Pete Townshend
8. Jumping Jack Flash - The Rolling Stones
9. Adam Raised a Cain - Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band
10. Surrender - Cheap Trick
11. Rebel Rebel - David Bowie
12. A Song for You - Gram Parsons
13. Human Being - New York Dolls
14. You Can't Put Your Arms Around a Memory - Johnny Thunders
15. Frenchette - David Johansen
16. Complete Control - The Clash
17. Today Your Love, Tomorrow the World - The Ramones
18. Kick out the Jams - MC5
19. Gloria - Patti Smith
20. All Tomorrow's Parties - Velvet Underground
21. Vicious - Lou Reed
22. Search and Destroy - Stooges
23. All Day and All of the Night - The Kinks
24. Cinnamon Girl - Neil Young
25. Shake - Otis Redding
26. Watching the Detectives - Elvis Costello & the Attractions
27. Marquee Moon - Television
28. All the Way from Memphis - Ian Hunter
29. Party Girl - U2
30. In the City - The Jam
31. Life and How to Live It - R.E.M.
32. Unsatisfied - The Replacements
33. The world's a mess, it's in my kiss - X
34. I'm In Love With a Girl - Big Star
35. Teenage Riot - Sonic Youth
36. You Got It - Mudhoney
37. Jesus Christ Pose - Soundgarden
38. Milez is Ded - Afghan Whigs
39. Insignificance - Pearl Jam
40. Nobody Girl - Ryan Adams

Numbers 41 and 42 will be unveiled when the list is completed.

I'm looking forward to this, and look forward to your comments on the project as it progresses.

harry and the potters

"2nite's HARRY & THE POTTERS party has moved from the Polish & Slavic Center, in Greenpoint, to OUR LADY OF CONSOLATION CHURCH REC CENTER @ 184 Metropolitan Ave btwn Bedford and Berry, in Williamsburg. The P & S Center had a boiler explosion, apparently.

OUR LADY OF CONSOLATION CHURCH REC CENTER is all ages and features a donation bar (with ID). Please be courteous if you get there early, as mass doesn't get over until 8:30 or so."

That tells you everything you need to know. The venue was a church rec hall basement, with directional signs in Polish and streamers and crepe paper adorning the ceiling. It was absurd. It was perfect.

10:34pm txt message: "The sock puppets are still onstage. I may be home later than I thought."

There were two opening bands. The first one was trying to be an ironic G-rated White Stripes, attempting to sing songs like "Theme from the Muppet Show" and "Rainbow Connection" in a pseudo-Dean-Martin attitude. Thankfully, they were quick.

The second band, Uncle Monsterface, featured the aforementioned sock puppets and a guy dressed as a big sock puppet and a dvd and would have been fine except they were TOO LONG. Despite this, I sat in the back drinking PBR and thinking that even with all of this absurdity, they were still more interesting than 99.9% of the opening bands I have seen in the last few years.

Harry and the Potters. So there were 10 year olds with their parents and gaggles of high school girls wearing American Eagle and then unabashed grown-up dorks. I couldn't get near the stage to take pictures because it was mobbed. The PA sucked but that didn't matter because the crowd was outsinging the guys.

bf: "So there's Harry Potter..."
me: "No, they're both Harry. One is Harry Year 4 and the other is Harry Year 7."
[The boyfriend has not read any HP so this is completely lost on him.]
bf: "And who else is in the band?"
me: "It's them and an iPod."
bf: "And they're called Harry and the Potters?"
me: "Yes."
bf: "And all the songs are about the books?"
me: "Yes, they're awesome!"
bf: "Punk rock songs about the Harry Potter books?"
me: "Well, punk in spirit, absolutely, but there are great tunes and good riffs and the lyrics are funny. And they are geeky, but not in a Star Trek fan kind of geeky. They have a sense of humor about being geeks."

Harry, year 7: "DOES EVERYONE HERE FEEL GOOD TONIGHT?"
Crowd: "YEAH!!!"
Harry: "DOES EVERYONE HERE FEEL LIKE A WIZARD?"
Crowd: "YEAHHHH!"
Harry: "Okay, this song is called 'I Am A Wizard'!"

It was completely fucking righteous, start to finish, all of it. It was honest and enthusiastic and fun and they were having so much fun and they so clearly love doing it. The PA sucks? So what else is new. No one can hear us? No big deal, we'll keep playing anyway. They had energy and enthusiasm and were so clearly excited to be on stage and that people come to see them and have a good time. No irony. No sardonic asides. Paul kept trying to jump up and down but he couldn't because the ceiling was so low. Maybe I dig it so much because I know what it's like to be a geeky fan? Especially a geeky fan of books and music? I don't know and I don't care.

Take your niece, borrow a neighbor's kid, go track them down as they zig zag around the country playing libraries and community centers and colleges. This is so fucking punk rock it hurts.

Check out their MySpace page for music and tour dates.