How to tell if you're trapped in a Nick Lowe song

• You operate a telephone switchboard and your name is Susan.
• You're in love with a telephone switchboard operator named Susan.
• You made an American squirm and it felt so right.
• You spent Christmas at the airport.
• You keep planning to write the book about your love but somehow you haven't gotten around to it yet, but you know that when you do write it and it gets published, it's going to be a hit.
• You're half a boy and half a man.
• You're cruel to be kind.
• You wonder what's so funny about peace, love, and understanding.
• You knew the bride when she used to rock and roll
• You love the sound of breaking glass.
• You're looking for a lover in the heart of the city.
• You remember the night when the kid tried to cut off his right arm in a bid to save a bit of power.
• You live on a battlefield.
• You've got seven nights to rock and seven nights to roll with your ragin' eyes.
• You trained her to love you then you broke her heart.
• You say all men are liars and that's the truth.
• You know what's shakin' on the hill.
• You're a Gaijin man in the land of the rising sun.
• You're gonna build a jumbo ark, a stretch 747.
• You know what the rose of England says.

My favorite music year

Periodically The Onion AV Club runs a recurring feature called 'My Favorite Music Year.' In this feature one of their staff writers rhapsodizes about the year a bunch of the favorite music came out. This is my take on that feature.

My favorite music year was 1978. But don't think I'm stuck in 1978, I enjoy new music and I'm constantly on the prowl for new bands and singers to enjoy. However, in 1978 some of the albums that shaped who I am today came out.

Among them was this album:
Smart, funny, deeply acerbic, and musically brilliant are just a few ways to describe the late Warren Zevon. I had already come to know about him through is session work for Linda Ronstadt who I adored at that time. This album had his biggest hit Werewolves of London on it, and it was deservedly a hit but to me Excitable Boy and Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner were even better songs. Mr Zevon died a few years back and there's been a void in our music scene ever since.
I've written how this album changed my life before on this blog and if you want to root around through my archives you can read about it. This album came out when all you heard on the radio was disco, sugary pop songs, and bloated prog rock shit. The music I heard on this album was so totally different, so new, so captivating that it hit me between the eyes like a hammer. It woke me from my late '70's slumber and pointed me in a new direction.

Fronted by every straight 16 year old boy's sexual fantasy, I was 16 in '78, Debbie Harry, Blondie was a breath of fresh air. They had radio friendly hits but they also rocked. And no one was sexier than Ms. Harry. Her breathy vocals made me swoon with teenage desire.

In Elvis Costello I saw someone who looked like me (a geeky gawky guy with huge black horn rimmed glasses) and had issues with women like I did back then (I was desperately shy and when I did make a move on a girl I was usually turned down which made me more self conscious and less likely to try again later). He was all attitude, snarling about lost love, shitty jobs, and had a general sour outlook on things, and I loved it. It was like he was speaking to me about me. It took me many years to fully appreciate this album but I finally do. Like many of his other works, it's classic.

Nick Lowe is the flip side to my Elvis Costello worship. He's more poppy, more fun, and more accessible. I loved his sound, his look, and his production of other rock and roll albums, he produced many of Costello's early albums and his fingerprints are all over many other artists of that time. I didn't come to know this album until many years after it came out, my introduction to Nick was 1979's Labour of Lust. When I finally got this album on cassette, I wore that cassette out from paying it over and over again. Due to fears of a backlash by Christians in this country they changed the name of this album when they released it over here in the USA, they changed it to Pure Pop for Now People. It's a stone cold classic.
On this album Springsteen finally lived up to the hype the press had heaped on him a few years earlier. Gone were the wordy ballads about fucking in the mud, catching the bus while drunk, and hanging out on the boardwalk in New Jersey. In their place were finely crafted songs that didn't take twelve stanzas to tell the story. And the songs were backed by blistering guitars, heavy duty bass lines, and tight drums. I still get a chill when I hear the 'Badlands', 'Adam Raised a Cain', and 'Prove it all Night.'

Other seminal albums that I love that were released in 1978 include:
Waylon & Willie (Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson), Easter (Patti Smith Group), Squeeze (Squeeze), FM Soundtrack (various artists), Street Legal (Bob Dylan), Peter Gabriel (Peter Gabriel), Some Girls (Rolling Stones), More Songs About Buildings and Food (Talking Heads), Who Are You? (The Who), One Nation Under a Groove (Funkadelic), Time Passages (Al Stewart), Dire Straits (Dire Straits), Outlandos d'Amour (The Police), Give 'em Enough Rope (The Clash), and Midnight Oil (Midnight Oil).

I could have just as easily went with 1979 but for the fact the Blondie and Springsteen released their classic albums in 1978.

What's your favorite music year?

Happy birthday Nick Lowe!

At one time he had the best mullet in rock and roll.

If we wait long enough...

...the Bay City Rollers look will come back into style.

Six Degrees of Green Monkey Music Mayhem ( or How I became a Green Monkey Music Master in three easy mixes!)

When I saw that Splotchy was reviving the Green Monkey Music Mixes I jumped at my chance to participate in my third one because once you do three mixes he awards you this coveted award:
Being a GMMP Master means that one day, Splotchy willing, I'll be able to set the theme for a mix. I'm grateful to Splotchy for making me a Green Monkey Master and I'm grateful to Beth for allowing me to be in her 'Six Degrees' Green Monkey Music Mix. You can download all the different participants by clicking here.

My choices for the mix are as follows:
1. I've made no secret for my love of Stiff Records. The first record Stiff put out back in the day was one by Nick Lowe. Sadly, that song is not in this mix.

However his criminally under appreciated song American Squirm off his late '70's album Labour Of Lust is. On an album that features a slew of great but somewhat twisted pop songs, American Squirm remains one of my all time favorites. It's got the best first line of any song ever written by a snarky British dude who was married to Johnny Cash's step daughter, Carlene Carter Cash. The song begins, "I made an American squirm and it felt so right..."

2. Lowe was, and still is, not only a great singer/songwriter, he's also a talented producer. He not only produced this Elvis Costello and the Attractions album, he also wrote one of the few hits off it.

That's right boys and girls, when Elvis sings, "What's so funny 'bout peace, love, and understanding?," he's singing lyrics Nick Lowe wrote. I like this version better because it's the one I first heard and it's less folky than Lowe's original version. This song is also the unofficial theme song of my blog.

3. Elvis took a page out of Nick's playbook and he branched out into producing records as well. He produced some tracks for The Specials and for one of my favorite Irish rock bands ever, The Pogues. In fact, Elvis not only produced this album for the Pogues, he also made off with their token female singer Cait O'Riordan, who is lead vocal on this track by the way. Sadly their romance didn't last but we'll always have Rum Sodomy and the Lash. One of my favorite tracks from this great album is the song I'm a Man You Don't Meet Everyday. It's a haunting song that's done beautifully.

4. When Elvis stole Cait away from the Pogues they replaced her with Kirsty MacColl on a few tracks on later recordings. The most famous of which is the song Fairytale of New York. I chose not to put that song in this mix and instead I chose this song by Kirsty, Don't Come The Cowboy With Me Sonny Jim. It's a country tinged song about a gal who lays down the law to a would be suitor. It features the late Ms. MacColl's voice wonderfully.

5. When not singing with the Pogues and making records on her own, Kirsty MacColl was married to one of the most influential record producers of the last 30 years. His name is Steve Lillywhite and he produced many many tracks for a ton of groups like U2, the Rolling Stones, Morrissey, Phish, the Dave Matthews Band, and The Talking Heads. Life During Wartime is one of my favorite songs ever. Maybe I'm paranoid or maybe I'm just a nervous person by nature but whatever it is I really identify with this song.

6. One of the places mentioned in the above song is a seminal rock and roll club called CBGB's. I've never been there, and I think it's been torn down now, but I know it was the place to play for a time in the late '70's and '80's. One of the bands that played there is a sugary confection of a group from Japan called Shonen Knife. Shonen Knife is girl group that sings catchy poppy songs that invade your subconscious and don't let go. One of the songs of theirs that does that is this one:

I defy you to listen to that song and not start singing it's chorus later.

Thanks once again to Beth and Splotchy for bringing the Green Monkey back. And you my little pets, you can now call me either Dr. Monkey or Master Monkey, whichever you prefer.

Ragin' Eyes

This clip from the old NBC David Letterman show is a classic. It's got Nick Lowe and Rockpile doing a great rockabilly song 'Ragin' Eyes.' You've got to love Nick's mullet and black eyebrows and his twangy singing. Also Paul Carrick, a one time member of Squeeze, tears up that electric piano. All of them rip it up, well as much as NBC would allow them to rip it up anyway.

If you ever pass a white Scion XA on the road and a fat blonde haired guy and a good looking brunette are bebopping and singing at the top of their lungs, it's probably me and my gf listening to this song on my Basher: The Best of Nick Lowe CD. What can I say, we both dig that crazy rockabilly beat!

Labels are good sometimes

Sundance Channel is plugging the hell out of a new show they got coming up called Music From People You Care Less About Live on Videotape from Abbey Road Studios. According to the hyperbole geniuses over at Sundance the Abbey Road studios were the greatest recording studios ever. I like the most all the Beatles music so I'm gonna let that bit of over the top nonsense lay where it landed. But the promo campaign for this show got me to thinking, and that's always a dangerous thing.

If the Abbey Road studios were the greatest in the world, then what was the greatest record label ever? Some say Motown, and since I was born in the Motor City when they were putting out hit after hit I might agree, some argue it's IRS, or Sub Pop, or Swan Song Records. Well those who say such things are wrong. No record label can hold a candle to Stiff Records in my book.

Stiff began it's short but productive life in the mid to late 1970's and it boasted a roster of talent that would make any other label green with envy. It had Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe, Dave Edmunds, the pride of Ohio Rachel Sweet, Tracey Ulmann, the wildly energetic Tenpole Tudor,
Lene Lovich, the late Desmond Dekker, Jona Lewie, possibly the greatest girl group ever the Belle Stars, the incomprable Wreckless Eric, Ian Dury, the late great Kristy MacColl, and many many more.
Eventually the label died in the mid eighties and you can read the Wikipedia article about it all here and the official website for the late lamented label is here.

One of my most prized albums used to be a Stiff Records sampler with Elvis Costello singing a Burt Bacarach song on it. It was the first time I ever thought ol' Burt was cool, until I found out he used to boink Angie Dickenson, then he was cool forever in my book. Alas I lost or sold or did something horrid to that album and it's lost forever. About 15 years ago Rhino Records came out with a 4 CD box set called The Best of Stiff or something like that and I snapped it up. Unfortunately I sold it a year later when I was unemployed and I regret to this day that I did that. But as luck would have it a Wreckless Eric song was featured in Stranger Than Fiction and after I saw it I went to Amazon.com and ordered the two Stiff sampler CDs they offered. I've been rocking out for two months now and I think my girlfriend is hooked on most of the Stiff music as well.
And boys and girls, if you listen to some of that music I linked, the reason it sounds so modern is because most of those artists were so far ahead of their time it's not funny. And that's why Stiff Records is my pick for the best record label ever.

Let us pray

Dear God,

I think I'm cracking up. The masters of war ignore our pleas to end the war and the media makes fun of the only candidate for President who will end the war. If you're up there, or out there, or where ever it is you hang out, how about a little help, how about you give us some peace love and understanding? Or at the very least how about a nice treat, like say, oh I don't know, maybe a banana split? If you do that then I promise not to burn down the malls.

Sarcastically yours,
Amen.

Video Interlude

When you listen to this song, insert the words right wingers or Republicans or Neo-Cons or Bushes or...every he says 'men.' Give it a listen, you'll see what we mean. Enjoy.