No fun? No, fun!

September's just a day a way, school is back in session in a week. What's an academic boy to do?

Go see Iggy and the Stooges, that's what!

I'm going to see them tonight at House of Blues in Boston. I saw the Stooges earlier this year when I attended the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony in NYC (which I blogged about below). It was awesome but they only played two songs that night. So now I'll get to see them play a whole set.

I usually don't make a point of heading out of town for shows. Chalk it up to my non-driver status. But who would I make a special effort to see if not the Stooges? I mean, Iggy's on the cover of my book fer Chrissakes! (Look to your upper right for proof.) And amazingly this Boston show is only one of three U.S. shows they're doing to lead up to their appearance at the big All Tomorrow's Parties shindig next weekend in upstate New York. Thanks to my friend and neighbor Bob Moore for providing the evening's transport. Should be a real cool time.

A more detailed report to follow in the days to come...

Sifting Through Memory for a Song

Anyone who's deeply into music has those moments when you have a song that has implanted itself in your consciousness somewhere along the way, but you can't quite remember what it is. I've had this happen more times than I can count, sometimes such that my effort to figure out what the song is has become borderline obsessive. I still remember as a teenager having a guitar melody in my head that I knew I'd heard before but could not for the life of me identify. Over the course of a couple years, it would come back in my head periodically, and its source was so elusive that I almost convinced myself that I'd made it up. Then, when I bought Jeff Beck's Truth album, I realized the melody that had been haunting me all those years was "Beck's Bolero."

Today I resolved another such mystery. Like many a guitar nut who came of age in the '80s, I love the guitar playing of Michael Schenker. The platinum blond German guitarist made some great solo albums after he left the pivotal hard rock/metal band UFO in the late 1970s. His output started to go down in quality though, by the later 1980s, when he teamed up with one of those driftless frontmen that seem to have a knack for teaming up with ace guitarists, a guy named Robin McAuley. I bought their first McAuley/Schenker group album, Perfect Timing, when it came out in 1987 and then, disappointed, I stopped paying attention. But a couple songs from that album have always remained in my head even though I've hardly listened to it over the past 20-odd years.

This afternoon, after listening to some tracks from the much superior Michael Schenker Group record, Assault Attack, I put on Perfect Timing, wanting to listen to those couple songs. Thing was, while I remembered one of the choicer cuts being the first song "Gimme Your Love," I couldn't remember the other one I liked best. And I didn't want to waste 40 minutes listening to the whole album. So I started putting the needle down on track after track - yes, I own this one on vinyl - until I found the song that fit my memory.

It turned out to be the next to last song on the album, called "I Don't Wanna Lose." It's something of a power ballad, and overall the song is fairly unexceptional. But it has a dramatic guitar solo, classic Schenker, that tears the song apart and redirects it for the minute or so that it lasts until the surrounding ordinariness reasserts itself. I was glad I rediscovered it, and I'm going to listen to it again as I soon as I post this. For the curious, here it is.

Time Keeps on Slipping: Popular Music Histories

I'm chairing the program committee for the upcoming conference of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music, U.S. chapter. I'm trying to get the word out as widely as I can, so anyone reading this, feel free to pass it along to any interested parties or post it to any relevant listservs, forums, etc. Here's the call for papers:

International Association for the Study of Popular Music, U.S. Chapter – Call for Papers.

Time Keeps on Slipping: Popular Music Histories

The International Association for the Study of Popular Music, U.S. Chapter (IASPM-US) will hold its annual conference Mar. 9-13, 2011 in Cincinnati, OH, in a joint meeting with the Society for American Music.

We invite proposals for individual papers or panels of three or four presenters. Alternate presentation formats, such as lecture/performances and roundtable panels, will also be considered.

We welcome proposals concerning all facets of popular music in the U.S. and abroad, but especially encourage submissions that address the following themes:

Canonical Histories: What aspects of the popular music past have assumed greatest authority, and why? What sort of power do canons (of music, of scholarship, of criticism) exert over the writing of popular music history?

Alternative Histories: What parts of popular music’s past have gone unrecognized? How can we re-imagine popular music history through the lenses of:
- Race and ethnicity?
- Gender and sexuality?
- Nationality and colonialism?
- Cultural hierarchy (high, low, middlebrow)?
- Bodily ability and disability?
Conversely, how can the study of popular music in historical perspective help to shed new light on these critical subjects?

Archival Approaches: What sources can we use to uncover popular music’s many pasts, and where can we find them? How are musical archives changing in the digital age?

Historical Methods: What counts as “history,” and what role does history play, in the various disciplines and sub-disciplines that comprise the field of popular music studies?

Local Histories: How can we decipher popular music’s connection to specific places at specific points in time? How can we use the location of this year’s conference – Cincinnati, Ohio – as a starting point for reflection on aspects of popular music history?

The deadline for submissions is October 1, 2010. Proposals should be submitted electronically to Steve Waksman, chair of the program committee, at iaspmus2011@gmail.com. Individual presenters should submit a paper title, 250-word abstract, and author information including full name, institutional affiliation, email address and a one-page c.v. Please send abstract and c.v. as separate MSWord attachments. Panel proposals should also include a panel title and abstract for the whole session.

All presenters at the conference are required to be current members of IASPM-US. For membership information, go to www.iaspm-us.net.

Thurston, Nate and Me

Who is that charming looking man at the right of the picture? Why that's me, your humble blogger. But I didn't post this picture because it's so flattering of yours truly. It's because of the company that surrounds me.

I came across this photo and the two below a couple weeks ago when I was cleaning out my office on campus. I had almost forgotten I had them - they were sitting amidst a huge pile of papers and I probably hadn't seen them for about four years. They were taken in 2002, during my first year teaching at Smith, and they capture an occasion worth recalling.

The occasion was a poetry reading by Nathaniel Mackey - he being the African American gentleman standing third from the left in the top photo. Mackey is a gifted, awe-inspiring poet, critic and prose writer. He is one of the nation's best, and he has a deep, abiding, passionate interest in music. I got to know his work through my friend and former professor Maria Damon, who turned me on to a series of prose fiction works that Mackey had written. The books are epistolary novels, following a running, years-long exchange between an experimental jazz musician named N. and his correspondent, named Angel of Dust. They go deep into the creative processes of making music, the cultural background of African American jazz, and the perils and pleasures of making difficult, demanding art. The books are titled, Bedouin Hornbook, Djbot Baghostus's Run, and Atet A.D.. They constitute some of the best fictional music writing I have ever encountered and I cannot recommend them highly enough.

Encouraged by Maria, I had invited Mackey to give a reading at Bowling Green State University the year before this photo was taken and had a great time getting to know him. A year later, by coincidence, he was invited to give a reading at nearby UMASS by Peter Gizzi, another great poet and former colleague of Nate's who had just joined the UMASS writing department. Peter is standing to the left of Nate in the photo, with his wife Liz - another talented writer - on his other side. Nate knew that I had moved to Smith, recommended to Peter that he invite me to the reading, and that's why I'm in the picture with them all.

But of course there's more to the story, because at the center of the image is Thurston Moore, co-guitarist, singer and indie-rock demi-god member of Sonic Youth. I can't claim to be friends with Thurston but he's lived in this neck of the woods longer than I have and, unsurprisingly, our interests intersect enough that we often wind up at the same events. He's had a long standing interest in various sorts of avant-garde activity and so there he was at Mackey's reading, accompanied by a mutual friend, Michael Ehlers, who is hidden in the top photo but standing next to Thurston in the one below (Michael just moved away from Northampton a year or so ago after living here for years; he was the head of the great independent free jazz record label Eremite, and put on some amazing shows here over the years before he left).




On a closing note, I need to acknowledge the photographer, who goes unseen. Her name was Lori Kemp, and she was a student at Smith during my first year. She was a non-traditional aged student (we call them Adas, for the program that admits them) with a punk rock past, and accompanied me to the reading with camera in hand. I haven't seen her for years so Lori, if by some chance you come across this post, drop a line and say hey.

1001 baby!

That's 1001 records, which is how many I own now that I went on a bit of a spree after my last post. That's one thing about keeping a blog - writing about something can reflect what's on your mind but can also make something implant itself in your head all the stronger. After I wrote about my recent record buying experience I just kept thinking about how much I wanted to buy even more records. And so I did.

(Part of me is tempted to go off on some extensive tangent concerning how this impulse of mine is so much emblematic of consumer culture in general, the way that desire to purchase and own some thing builds irrationally, such that it seems impulsive, almost beyond one's control...but I'll leave it at that).

I made one of my periodic trips to the neighboring town of Amherst, which I do every now and then because I get sick of sitting in the exact same couple of coffee shops every day, but also because Amherst has music buying options that Northampton lacks. Specifically, in this case, Mystery Train Records.

Now, in my last post I went on about some of my mixed feelings concerning the used record selection at Turn It Up! in downtown Northampton. My feelings about Mystery Train are also mixed but for different reasons. This is a place where used vinyl remains the main attraction, which in itself makes it a fairly rare and special place. The problem is that as with so many used record shops I have visited in my time, the inventory doesn't turn over often enough. The "new" bin is always pretty well stocked but when you go into their regular stacks of old used stuff you just see the same things over and over for months or in some cases even years on end.

This seems even more true since the store moved from their old location next to Amherst Brewing Company to a new, less central location just down the street. The new Mystery Train has its charms - it's in a quaint little house tucked away at the end of a dirt driveway, kinda cool. But it also seems half the size of the old location despite there being two floors, and while I haven't asked to confirm I'm sure they keep less stuff out for browsing than they used to. Which is a bummer given how few good places there are to shop for used vinyl in the first place.

Part of the upshot of this situation is that if I'm really in the mood to buy something, as I was on this particular day, then I will often wind up buying something I only sort of want, something I've probably looked at literally 100 times before and decided that I didn't especially want or need but after so much exposure decide that maybe I'll take it after all. Of the eight albums I bought on this particular day, the one that most fits that description is Queen's News of the World. Not that it's a bad album, but like so many of Queen's albums it's a mixed bag and I already own some of the more choice cuts on various compilations. But, on this particular day it suddenly had an appeal it hadn't before, and it was decently priced at $4.50 to boot, so it became mine.

As for the rest, eclecticism was the order of the day. One thing I was happy with was that my desire to bring home a good selection (and break that 1000 records mark) led me to look a little harder in certain sections I don't always pore over. In this case that meant giving a good hard look at the Soul/R&B albums, three of which I took home with me, including Rags to Rufus by Rufus featuring Chaka Khan which has some great 1970s funk tracks. But this leads to one last bit of whining, which is that it was a very hot day and the upstairs of Mystery Train, where the regular stash of used records are kept, is not air conditioned and must have been damn near 100 degrees in there. I'll mark it as a sign of my ridiculous dedication to the task at hand that I didn't let the heat deter me.

New Old Records

I just did something I haven't done for too long: bought some records - meaning vinyl. Not that it's been months and months but it's been a while. Access to used vinyl around these parts has been more limited ever since Dynamite Records closed shop last summer (about which I blogged at the time). There are other shops in the Pioneer Valley but nothing else right in downtown Northampton that has quite the standing selection that Dynamite always had. And for a transportationally challenged guy like me (read: I don't drive a car) that's a big bummer.

Another used music shop is downtown, Turn It Up, but their vinyl collection has never quite had the depth to keep me sifting through the shelves on a regular basis - they've always specialized in CD's with LP's as a sidebar. It does seem though, that with Dynamite gone they've been making more space for records in the very crowded store. I still find their selection to be more miss than hit (and always suspect that they weed out most of the good stuff for themselves before they put anything out for general consumption) but on my recent trip I scored more than the usual array of good finds, coming home with four records to add to my collection.

Of course, shopping for used records always involves some complicated decisions about what counts as a worthy purchase. The desirability of the music as music rests alongside considerations of cost and of the condition of the record (both the disc itself and its cover material). When I buy used vinyl I find myself buying things I'd never buy on CD but that I find have a certain charm in the vinyl format, and that I'm willing to bring home if the price is right. In this case, all four of the albums I bought cost a mere $2 each, and all were in decent condition (covers a bit worn in a couple cases but the records themselves in good playable shape, with the expected cracks and pops here and there that vinyl fans believe to "add character").

So what'd I buy? Here's the rundown:

Journey, Infinity. An ironic purchase in light of my last post, Journey's first album featuring singer Steve Perry. First side is pretty fine, lots of short catchy songs strung together. Second side has hit "Wheel in the Sky" and then falls into less scintillating territory, almost prog-like at times.

Bonnie Raitt, Give It Up. Her debut album from the early 1970s. I've always meant to give her a closer listen so finally made the plunge. A nice album, bluesy and mostly acoustic but with great horn accompaniment on several cuts. Almost has a Little Feat kind of vibe at times which is okay by me.

Foghat, Fool for the City. This was my find of the day. I've been looking for a good copy of this for a while, as a supplement to their great Live which I've owned since I was a kid. After one listen, I like it but Live remains my go-to album, forty minutes of unrelenting rock. (I could write a whole other post on my fondness for live hard rock albums from the 1970s, and maybe I will some time).

Chic, Risque. I haven't listened to this one yet, but it's the album that contained the absolutely classic "Good Times," and even though I already own that song on a greatest hits collection, I'm eager to hear it in the context of the original full length LP.

Having begun to catalog my music collection a few years ago, I can say with ridiculous accuracy that these purchases bring my vinyl collection up to 992. I don't know why I care but I'm looking forward to breaking 1000 before summer's over.

I'm a little slower on the uptake than usual now that it's summer, but having watched the season finale of Glee last week, I was left wondering: what the hell is up with the Journey revival that's been going on in recent years?


When the makers of The Sopranos decided to end the series in the midst of "Don't Stop Believin'," you couldn't miss the irony, but at the same time Journey was clearly used because of how much the band stands so powerfully for a certain moment in time, and also for how they are an ultimate object of derision for hipster music snobs (which David Chase and co. clearly were - and so am I, but more on that below). It was like they were saying, this is Tony's idea of a great song, but we know it's a giant ball of cheese, and the fact that Tony would hear this as a song about faith is a sign that he in fact has no future to speak of.

But when the same song appeared as one of the big hits from the first half of the first season of Glee, that irony was more or less gone. Or maybe not gone, but seriously transfigured. Yes, Glee is campy as all get out, but it's also got a strong nugget of sentimental sincerity lurking not so far beneath its glittery surface. And that mix of sincerity and camp that drives the show is what makes the Journey repertoire so perfect for its singers to sing - thus the Glee season finale featured a long, protracted medley/mash-up of Journey songs, designed to let Lea Michele flaunt her high notes for all they were worth, like Steve Perry in drag. Journey was a schlock band comprised of a bunch of serious musos, guys who could play the hell out of their instruments - and often did - but that chose very self-consciously to play to the tastes of the top 40 audience. They perfected the power ballad and created songs with lots of aural drama. Whether their music had any "real" emotion in is harder to be definitive about but in their peak years (up to the Escape album, which has "Don't Stop Believin'") they sure knew how to go for the emotional jugular.

Now, lest I let my snobbery get the best of me, I'll admit that back when the band was creating most of its biggest hits I was smack dab in the midst of its target audience, and I bought it. I only own two Journey albums - the live Captured and of course, Escape - but I played the hell out of them when I was a kid and a lot of the songs are still pretty well fresh in my mind. And with all the Journey that's been in the air in recent years, I've been moved to go back to those albums and remind myself of what's there. And it ain't all bad. I won't wax on much more about the good and the bad of old Journey, but I will state my strong affinity for one of their songs that has largely been overlooked in the current revival.

"Stone in Love" is the second song on Escape and it probably stands as my favorite song by the band. It's a good, straight, hard rocking tune - not a power ballad - but it does have a twist, in the form of an instrumental coda that ranks with the best of another melodic hard rock band of the time, Boston. As a guitarist, Neal Schon had a tendency to overplay at times but here he creates a strong melody and builds a solo around it in the song's final minute that preserves its integrity but takes enough liberties to make things interesting and indeed, push them to the next level. For the last year or so I've been playing it often - it's usually the only song I play from the album - and I always get a rush from playing along with it on my guitar.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_pZFciPrI8&feature=related