tumblr : 45rpm
Even I am not immune to the year-end listing process. Here’s my list of favorite/best shows of 2011. It’s so skewed as to representative of nothing except my particular universe – but it’s not like I’m pretending that 2012 isn’t going to be a laundry list of Springsteen and Afghan Whigs shows.
1. Twilight Singers, San Francisco
2. Wild Flag, Bell House
3. U2, Montreal night 1
4. Big Audio Dynamite, Roseland
5. Horrible Crowes, Bowery Ballroom
The video above is Jesse Malin onstage at the Stone Pony Saturday night. Yes, that is me, singing along in the background, even though I was taping. I hit record because I was anticipating some kind of hopeful rumination about Paul Westerberg or the Replacements or something similar. Instead I watched a bunch of people stand and stare at the stage.
I continue to remain amazed that in 2011 that “Bastards of Young” is not canon, that it is not mandatory, that everyone in the world does not know the words to it. Or even at least a Jesse Malin audience who presumably bought the covers record for which this was the lynchpin (as per Jesse), that they would know this song. I remain amazed that the Replacements continue to fade from view, that people don’t know and don’t care and don’t care to know. I am like one of those old people who remembers when things were one way and they still think things are that way, because in my day everyone I knew loved the Replacements (or made a conscious decision that they did not) and they were huge and important and hugely important, they were massive, they were the kind of thing you planned your life around, an album, a tour, a show, a television appearance was like a national holiday of some sort.
Just picked up one of those little Crosley turntables at Target. I have the turntable and the stereo in the living room, but there ain’t that much room in a NYC apartment. It’s got speakers and it closes up just like my mom’s old RCA and has a handle and everything. It’ll do for the occasional vinyl indulgence in my office.
On the turntable for its initial spin was the 45-only release of Greg Dulli’s tribute to Eddie Hinton. His cover of “Hard Luck Guy” is breathtaking. Dulli should get a Guggenheim to be able to work with horns for the rest of his career.
When the band broke up, my first thought was “I’ll never get to see Matt Cameron play drums again” and, well, we know how that turned out. But there’s a difference between playing on that stuff and playing Soundgarden music. I snuck through Seattle alleys and darkened under-curfew streets to see Kim Thayil play live with Jello Biafra during the WTO riots. I flew to San Francisco to see Chris Cornell’s first solo gig at the Fillmore. I will believe it when I see it, but there is part of me that is just OVER THE MOON.
The recent Sub Pop 20 festivities got me into a conversation with a friend about Kim Thayil.
SUB POP WORLD DOMINATION FINALLY Read the whole post here.
Writing about the Beatles is like writing about the sky or the sun or the moon – at least on my planet. It also appeared to be an impossible task, until I realized I had already done it without knowing I had. I was writing about George but really, everything I ever thought and felt [...]
1. Light My Fire, the Doors This is quite possibly the most longest, pointless bridge in the history of rock and roll, just short of that plodding version of “Sweet Jane” on the Rock and Roll Animal album. I don’t know if it always bothered me (not that I was ever a Doors fan) but [...]
#2: “School’s Out” – Alice Cooper #3: “Get It On (Bang A Gong)” – T. Rex I’ve been struggling over the past few weeks over these two entries, obsessing over my memory, trying to recall any significant detail – or rather, any detail at all – behind my discovery of these two songs that would [...]
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 [...]
elsewhere