To the city employees

On the brush clearing crew

Wearing hi vis vests

In the elementary school parking lot

Playing HORSE

With a children’s soccer ball

Just letting off steam

One of them legit dunks

And I’m happy this is where my taxes go

Young Losers “All Gone” b/w “Private Affair”

Young Losers 

 

All Gone b/w Private Affair 

scum stats: two variants, the "table sleeve" is the rarer one here 

Young, loud and snotty with hand-written labels, colored vinyl (blue) coupled with a black-and-white photocopied sleeve and Saints cover on the b-side...was there any other way for a punk single to exist in 1998? I feel on the verge of wistful when I consider that this "style" or "approach" may actually just kinda fade away. I don't see kids doing shit in this manner any more. Life is LONG but time is short. So soak it in. What feels omnipresent or indefatigable is always just a generation away from disappearing. Live it while you can.

 

Sponge "Molly (Sixteen Candles Down The Drain)"

Sponge

Molly b/w Cowboy Eyes

scum stats: limited edition numbered copies on marigold colored vinyl. It's unclear how "limited" it actually is. my copy is #2884

When this song was released as a single in 1995, I'm pretty sure I *liked* it. I don't recall anyone in my immediate social circle of 13-year-old boys LOVING it, but as it was played ad nauseam on the local rock radio stations, it penetrated enough so that you couldn't really even ignore it. At worst, you just had to accept it.

Sponge being from Detroit didn't even really seem to make any connection to us either. It's not like we knew them or saw them around. They still might as well had been from Mars for all we knew. My appreciation for local music was still a good 4-5 years away.

And once that appreciation for local music struck, in the form of the underground garage bands of the late 1990s, my proverbial about-face found me shit-talking Sponge. Like they were an after-thought response to the true rebel artistry of the Seattle bands preceding them.

I held on to that mindset for a good fifteen years.

Then without warning, on paternity leave back in 2016, driving home from Babies 'R' Us with a dresser/changing table in the back of the Flex, I caught "Molly" on the Lithium channel on satellite radio. 

The production still left something to be desired, but more than ever, the WORDS got to me. My understanding is that the song is inspired by a story of an ill-fated professor/student romance, capped off with a suicide attempt. 

Maybe it was colored by fatherhood, or just the warmth of the familiarity of the lyrics after so many years, but the song, despite all its affected guitar and bluster and edge, struck me as so melancholy, as heartfelt, as properly emotional.

I went on a rabbit hole looking through various live versions and acoustic renditions and the feeling not only remained, but intensified. While the attempted rhyming of "glass" and "vase" still irks me, I keep coming back to the vocal melody sung with the pair of lines "don't ask why" and "sixteen candles down the drain." 

The melody is heartbreaking, it is dour, but at the same time, there's a weird underlying glimmer of optimism to it all. I sing this to myself all the goddamned time.

At the time I made a note to myself that Third Man should reach out to whoever controlled the rights to the Rotting Pinata LP and we should do a big proper reissue of it. I slept on that note, someone else did the reissue and to placate myself I tracked down a 7-inch copy for less money that I spend on a single can of Ghost energy drink.

I've got a quasi-secret plan for this song, I'm not ready to let the cat out of the bag just yet, but assuming I can pull some shit together, it will have made it all incredibly worth it. Stay tuned.

(untitled)

i am throwing up

in a violent thunderstorm

singing “Our Secret”

Thank God For RADAR - How The White Stripes Began Recording All Of Their Live Performances

(originally published 2/17/23 on the Nugs.net blog)

https://2nu.gs/ws472003

Twenty years ago, give or take a couple of weeks, the White Stripes purchased a Random Access Digital Audio Recorder. RADAR for short. It cost $8000. When recently asked about the impetus behind the move, long-time Stripes manager Ian Montone said…

“Many artists I respected - musically and from a business standpoint - always recorded their shows. Frank Zappa specifically. We wanted to implement something similar given we already owned our studio master recordings. So it made sense to record and own everything the band (and Jack) did moving forward. Live shows included. Because every show was different. There was no setlist. Everything was special. We wanted to capture that for posterity’s sake - hence the RADAR.”

In terms of the archival footprint of the White Stripes, the importance of this decision cannot be overstated. Previously, sanctioned live recordings were largely limited to whenever I was there AND the club had a cassette deck wired to the soundboard. With the end result being a static two-channel board recording subject to the whims and preferences of a house sound engineer’s real-time mixing, it left a lot to be desired.

For example…my obligations as a mediocre Detroit college journalism student with a scholarship meant that for the entirety of 2002 (a year the Stripes played nearly 100 shows) I was present for a mere seven performances, two of which were purely coincidental as my band the Dirtbombs were slotted as the warm-up act. 

Thus, the number of proprietary live recordings from 2002 in the archive? Shit, barely any. I count one, give or take one.

But come 2003 the White Stripes would have the raw masters of their on-stage inputs digitally preserved. This gave the band the ability, after-the-fact, to have whomever they desired to properly and precisely mix every live show they performed, regardless of whether or not I was there to slide the sound guy a tape that night. This was $8000 well-spent.

Thank god for RADAR.

The April 7th, 2003 gig in Wolverhampton was the first show the White Stripes recorded with this digital system. More importantly, this show is the kick-off to the Elephant world tour, approximately 14 months of whirlwind travel, Whirlwind Heat, sold out shows, not sold out ethics, finger breakings, Grammy takings, global gallivanting and “oh oh oh oh oh ohhhh oh” chanting. 

The performance, shockingly, has not been heard in ANY form since the amps powered down that evening two decades ago. I guess no one in Wolverhampton was doing surreptitious audience recordings at the time. Photos of the gig? I found none. Concert poster? I’ve never seen one. Please, prove me wrong. I welcome it. Contemporaneous accounts of the evening? A dumb brief write-up from the NME, one slightly more informative from the Independent and that’s it. 

As Jack humbly tells the crowd that Elephant hit number 1 on the charts this day…the gig…you’d think there’d be more proof that it really existed. Things here feel big. They seem important. A chance whiff of greatness. The weight of it all is palpable on the recording.

So the wait to hear this show is most definitely worth it. The first-ever public outing of a clutch of songs off Elephant is the definition of historic. 

The fact that Meg switches to her snare hits late on the first verse of “Seven Nation Army”? I LOVE it. Perhaps the only time ever she didn’t 100% nail that song. Jack’s nerves evident on “In The Cold, Cold Night”? Endearing. The premature ending of “The Hardest Button To Button”? A combo of “wow” and “holy shit” said in wonderment. 

These are by no means the best versions of ANY of these songs. But they are precious for what they presage…the eventual enshrinement of said tunes in the bombastic canon of a band well on its way to their peak form.

Beyond that…the first time ever covering Public Nuisance’s “Small Faces.” What a moment! And the extra special treat of what we’ve titled here “Talking Pillow By My Side Blues.” An improvised song done in the “talking blues” style pioneered by Chris Bouchillon, appropriated by Woody Guthrie and yet further popularized by Bob Dylan, “Pillow” is one of the more realized extemporaneous songs to emerge from a White Stripes live show of any era. Which is fortunate to have been captured here, as it never shows up again, anywhere, ever.

Thank god for RADAR.

Though I must stress, the method was not perfect. As The White Stripes front of house engineer Matthew Kettle would say “Despite being the best thing we could get at the time, the RADAR was occasionally unreliable, and as we weren't carrying a sound desk everywhere at that point, not every show was recorded successfully.”

With that in mind, there’s a handful of songs that failed to be recorded in Wolverhampton. “Dead Leaves” and “Black Math” and “I Think I Smell A Rat” seem to be songs from the top of the set lost to the ether on this night. Which isn’t too bad in the grand scheme of things, considering there’s an entire WEEK where Kettle’s best efforts were thwarted by the finicky digital interface and thus, we’re left only with our imagination and collective recollection trying to discern what happened at half dozen shows in June of 2003.

Otherwise the RADAR material was immediately put to use…the accompanying audio to “Black Math” live vid from the Masonic Temple, the Berlin soundcheck b-side recording of “St. Ides of March” and the promo-only triple LP Live In Las Vegas are all proper public-facing mobilizations of these recordings. Third Man didn’t even attempt to crack these suckers open for another ten years until prepping the Nine Miles From The White City live LP included in Vault Package 16 from 2013.

At that point, upon handing mix engineer Vance Powell the necessary drives, he audibly winced. 

“What?” I asked him, perplexed and, let’s face it, ignorant.

“These drives have moving parts. Good luck getting anything off of them,” Vance replied.

To which point I said “You gotta be fucking kidding me.”

“No, I’m not,” he said. “These things are ten years old.”

I learned a very crucial lesson at that moment…that any digital format is only reliable for a couple years before it’s usurped by something more streamlined and less cumbersome - OR - it just stops working. The need to constantly update and re-archive digital files is downright maddening. There is no long-term, futureproof, failsafe digital carrier. Ever. It would be another five years before all drives were properly transferred to a relatively stable LTO format. And even then, not without RADAR drive “G” requiring a $1761.60 “clean room” recovery to save seven shows that would have otherwise just disappeared.

It sounds comical now, but wearing my “businessman” hat I broke out the calculator to amortize the proposal…deciding with an almost embarrassingly “duh” quickness that $251 per show was a reasonable enough fee to reclaim those ephemeral moments. Because there’s spirit in all these recordings. The unforeseen nostalgia of memories yet to be uncovered. Instances where the power of an assemblage of strangers in a room together can divine a psychically shared experience. Time that mattered to someone. Moments could now last forever, 

One of those moments, cast off with barely any consideration, a seconds-long thought formulated into action in a more simple manner, appeared when Jack White signed the venue guest book after the show. 

“Thanks Civic, you made my day and I shan't forget it.”

And because of a wise $8000 investment made nearly a generation ago, you won’t either.

Thank god for RADAR.

"It's A Holiday Inn Massacre..."

A few years back I worked an extended period in the Third Man Detroit offices. Through normal conversation, the "Fishbowl" single by Green Wall was brought up.

From my memory, the two folks who brought it up could not stop shitting on it. Just HATED the record. It was prominent on their radar when it came out of the Detroit suburbs in 1990, and in some regard, just the antithesis of what was good and worthwhile and noteworthy.

From my perch...I just loved it.

I sat back and waited for nearly three years now...multiple copies available on Discogs, but ALL of them overseas. I finally bit the bullet and spent more on shipping than for the actual record to get it from the UK.

Listening now...I think I love it even more. Swank popped his head in the door with that quizzical "What is this?" look on his face. I asked if he was curious because it was bad...or if he thought it was good. He said it appealed to his teenage "Rats Revenge" sensibilities and I get where he's coming from.

I find localized precedents along the lines of the Tulsa City Truckers and (maybe) the Rascal Reporters. But there's a little bit more adolescent naivete present here, bordering on art rock avant garde, that ups the ante in an impressive way.

Side note: only upon receiving this copy in the mail did I find out that one of the band members is John Tenney. I sat at the same table as this guy at a wedding like 15 years ago. I was told that he had taken over "Coast to Coast" radio after Art Bell passed, but my googling just now shows me that he's maybe only guested on the program. Anyway, Tenney is considered an esteemed paranormal researcher. Seems about right. 

"Holiday Inn Massacre" is my go-to here. Uncompromising, uncomparable, straight ahead, nonsensical. I can see how the shock of 90's nonsensical stupidity might turn off those who fully lived through it. But for those who didn't get to their first punk show until after Cobain kicked the bucket, there's a whiff of the "so close, I just missed it" grass-is-greener feels of what the cool kids were doing just before you walked through the door. 

These are the ephemeral, difficult to put into words moments I find myself searching out more and more. It brings me joy.

Star/Time “Like An Owl Exploding”

Star/Time

Like An Owl Exploding 

scum stats: I know this is limited. 250 copies? 300? the specifics escape me

There is a joy, a pure joy at listening to one of your most favorite instrumentalists.

Patrick Pantano, the drummer of Star/Time, is that joy for me.

For over a solid decade he sat behind a kit directly to my left as we commanded the backbeat across the globe with the Dirtbombs. He is tight and crisp. Me is sloppy and over-relying on the visual apparel of long blonde hair flying and swirling about to distract from the fact that I often had no idea what in the hell I was doing.

While Pat has always had other musical projects, the slow creep of age and his physical relocation to the southern hemisphere makes this all the more bittersweet. I feel like I'm listening to my phantom limb, calling out to be reunited with the rest of its body.

Specifically, "Cockroach Bikini" (GREAT title) repurposes the drum pattern that Pat and I had nailed in a syncopated manner whenever the Dirtbombs played "Granny's Little Chicken." Known amongst us simply as "Granny's," that song features a wholesale lift the hook from Ghostface Killah's "Daytona 500" which is just a straight sample of the indomitably funky "Nautilus" bass line by Bob James.

The repurposed borrowing of a steal of a sample leaves this guy here smiling and wistful. Artful with intention.

Most of these beats I've heard Pat play a thousand times before, he's definitely the groove and playing in the style and intensity that he wants. And doing so with flash.

The entire album gives a strong improvised feel and with that comes the bold statement that it really gives the impression that the drums are the lead instrument here.

And that's a-ok by me.

Skronks of horn here and there, jitty little guitar stabs, some ancillary kitchen sink percussion...this is a groovy, tastefully experimental slice with flashes of weight and sinister underpinnings. Experimental without clearing the room. Funky without sounding white. Atmospheric without seeming like someone just stepped on an effects pedal to make that happen.

The essence of soul here is the confidence and motivation for forward movement. It relieves as much as it causes pauses and invites debate. I need more records like this to magically appear in the world.

I highly recommend picking up this record. I feel like it is worth your time.

like an owl exploding by STAR/TIME</a></iframe>

Wolf Eyes "Difficult Messages" And How Favors Turn Into Obligations In The Best Way

Wolf Eyes played the Blue Room in Nashville a few months back. Was a good time catching up with the band, show was solid, vibes for days. 

Shortly thereafter, John Olson reached out and asked me if I'd do a write up for their new record. I happily agreed. From there on out delay after sickness after whatever other roadblock just blew up every damn deadline I was given.

By the time I finally tackled it, I maybe spent a half-hour on the write-up. I didn't even know what I was saying. I told John, upon delivering the document, that I wasn't even sure what the intended use was for the write-up. 

Ultimately, I thought I blew it and was just experiencing the quintessential polite Midwestern good graces from the Wolfs.

So imagine my shock when a rep from Wolf Eyes' label reached out to me saying that he'd pitched the piece to Talkhouse ("Talkhouse is writing and conversations about music and film, from the people who make them").

I'd admired the website from afar for some time, primarily inspired by Lou Reed's review of Kanye West's Yeezus. This was not expected. Furthermore, as my draft was only 300 some words, they were hoping that I could expand on it to get to their desired 800 word count.

And they'd pay me $150 for the privilege.

I was more than happy to finesse the piece even more, draw a lot more of my personality and real life into it, and ultimately, hope that I shine the light on Wolf Eyes in a manner that makes other folks wanna take a listen. Dig it.

https://www.talkhouse.com/wolf-eyes-difficult-messages-is-a-counter-to-boredom/

Spin Art Pizza

Yesterday I was at a party that had an assortment of pizzas as food for guests. Each one in a delivery box, the pizzas were labeled as one would expect…cheese, pepperoni, mushroom, vegan, etc. 

The box that really caught my eye said “spin art.”

I was immediately compelled by the genius (yet simple) idea. 

Take some flattened pizza dough, affix it to a sort of turntable with the ability to rotate at what I’d peg to be ~78rpm speed. Then much in the manner of the mid-20th century carnival art style (later appropriated and upsold by Damien Hirst in the 1990’s) apply different cheeses or toppings or dressings or sauces that without much effort will radiate out in a visually pleasing manner.

Dare I say it felt deceptively revolutionary and I was kicking myself for not having landed on the idea on my own.

I opened the box to lay eyes on the masterpiece and was immediately hit with the realization “Oh shit. It’s just spinach and artichoke.”

So…patent pending.

The White Stripes Live at the Ritz, Raleigh, NC 9-26-99

Listen Here

Direct quote from the tour diary "The 'Ritz' is anything but, although it holds about 2400 people + gave us a $10 buyout. The backstage was spacious + clean + for some reason Jack was fascinated w/ the ceiling tiles...Stripes made $70+ in merch and the show was more tempo consistent but there were some more mistakes than last night." 

Apparently we lied to the front desk of the Comfort Inn on this evening and said that only two people would be staying in the room that night. It was actually four of us in there. The next day we went to five different places in town looking for an A/C adapter (I think for Jack's Whammy pedal) and in the process drove the rented green minivan 20 miles the wrong way. Jack's post-song banter regarding "Wasting My Time" and his dedication of "The Big Three Killed My Baby" to Preston Tucker are both innocently charming here.  The impromptu cover of Earl King's "Trick Bag" via the Gories version of the same song is full of swagger and would be one of only two times the Stripes were captured doing the song. I dig it.

This combination of songs, the manner in which they're played, the overall vibe of the whole thing...it is all entirely unique to the three shows that the White Stripes played opening for Pavement in September 1999. The Stripes never really held this vibe previously and would never land on it again. I guess it's a matter of opinion whether or not that's a good thing or a bad thing.  The fact it was their first-ever time playing three shows in three days feels significant and as the first bout of anything that could even in the loosest sense of the term be called a "tour" should make us all glad that there would be more of such endeavors. I guess there's probably an alternate reality where these gigs are pure disasters and it scares off Jack and Meg from putting themselves out there, maybe they don't hop in the van a year later when Sleater-Kinney asks 'em to open. The entirety of the White Stripes career is a collection of fortunate opportunities leading to even more fortunate and opportune possibilities. In the end, optimism and positivity tends to win out.

I was seventeen years old at the time of this show. Looking back over twenty years later my inclusion in the reindeer games seems and feels kind of unnecessary, yet I am insanely grateful I was there. Most importantly, I convinced the sound guy to record the show on a cassette and now we can all enjoy and dissect what went down in that half-empty room so many moons ago.

Beat Happening "Our Secret" b/w "What's Important"

Beat Happening

Our Secret b/w What's Important

scum stats: could it be more than 1000 copies? hard to imagine

As gentle an atomic blast as you could ever imagine. The debut vinyl outing from these godheads, it's just SO perfect, from the hand-coloring on the picture sleeve to the "aw shucks" vibe apparent on both sides. The sound that launched a thousand imitators? Possibly.

Years ago a buddy of mine said, in regards to Beat Happening, "Man....don't you just wish you heard this when you were fifteen years old? Like it'd give you permission (encouragement?) to just go out there and be amateur and unprofessional and out of tune and...it's all ok."

While I wholeheartedly agree with all that sentiment, the fact of the matter is that I DID hear this stuff when I was 15 years old and it absolutely inspired me in all of those ways, providing a north star always able to refer to even as I crest into my forties.

I bought a sleeveless copy of this record in a bulk lot of 7"s on eBay back in 2000 or so. I sent an email to Calvin Johnson of the band/K Records and asked if there were any random sleeves that might just be kicking around. In all honesty he said he'd take a look and although he didn't turn up any, the fact that he'd give some punk teenager the time of day (over email) to go and try to scrounge a picture sleeve for a record from SIXTEEN YEARS earlier tells you all you need to know about the magic of taking time, of listening, of not being dismissive of the younger generation that lets this band maintain its relevance nearly forty years after their inception.

"...I had dinner with her family" as the final line of the a-side is just...carries the weight of a thousand suns both in its intonation and the meaning behind it.

All the Beat Happening LP's are newly repressed for like the thousandth time and please do buy any/all of them as you cannot go wrong anywhere in their catalog. An American band as equally as important as the Grateful Dead. Go ahead...fight me. 

Masalla "Burnin' Feeling" b/w "Simple Words"

 Masalla

Burnin' Feeling b/w Simple Words

scum stats: 100 copies splatter vinyl with screen printed mailer and inserts, 400 copies on black vinyl. mine is black vinyl with the mailer and inserts, go figure

If you like Brown Acid obscuro 70's hard rock, this Masalla single is your shit. I first became aware of it back in 2014 when I saw a copy for sale on a Frank Merrill mail order auction list (so archaic) described as "midtempo crude garage, flip VERY heavy guitar, rock psych." Minimum bid was $30. I had NO idea what it was and bid just north of $200. The eventual winner bid well over $400. I have no regrets.

"Burnin' Feeling" is everything you could ever hope for. Starting off with an audio snippet warning against the negative effects of drug use (hahahaha....clearly they're joking) the thunderous riff driven vibes just SLAY. Raspy overblown vocals and ripping guitar solo shredding...it's like you can still SMELL these guys 52 years later. Apparently the original was pressed in an edition of 100 copies in Miami in 1970. If this was a Michigan record...I'd probably piss my pants.

The packaging here is exquisite, the Ancient Grease approach with the blind embossed paper sleeve and liner notes booklet and reproduced photo of a pet monkey and the facsimile newspaper clipping glued into the rubber stamped mailer...it is an overall impressive experience. Definitely worth your time checking out anything (everything?) they put out.

Cake "Fashion Nugget"

Cake

Fashion Nugget

scums stats: recent 180-gram black vinyl version...but I would happily trade something of appropriate worth for an original '96 pressing

Man, isn't it crazy what was allowed to become a hit back in the mid-Nineties? I've got the framework of an essay percolating in my head about the insanities of true, top of the chart hits from the era. It's all mind blowing. "The Distance" is such a weird song from a weird band that should have NEVER had a chance in the record business world as I understand it. So obviously, I relish in its existence. 

But it's so damn good. Freshman year of high school me bought the CD stat. And honestly, I've probably grown to the point that "The Distance" is pretty forgettable for me now. I mean, it's alright...but have you listened to "Frank Sinatra"?

Damn. For at least 12 years after this came out I would scribble teenaged sounding "poetry" or "lyrics" that was entirely cribbed from the meter and scheme of "Frank Sinatra." To this day, every time I hear it, I still smile and perk up. The muted, understated organ intro...just stellar in every way. 

Beyond that, my teenaged guitar/drums duo recorded a version of "I Will Survive" in the attic at 1203 Ferdinand back in '97 and just flipping through all these songs, they are all just so solid, timeless really...I mean, is there any other album out there that has covers of Gloria Gaynor and Willie Nelson on it? I don't think so.

Whirlwind Heat told me that they decided to record their "Types of Wood" album at Paradise Studios because that's where Cake recorded Fashion Nugget and is claimed to have the best drum sound in all of the studios in America. On top of that, Greg Brown's guitar tone and playing here just stands alone in regards to what was available and accessible to a young kid like me at the time. It sounded...like a guitar should sound. 

I've never bought any other Cake records (never even seen any of the 7"s culled from this LP...so all have just been added to my Discogs wantlist) and despite the 8xLP boxset going for A THOUSAND DOLLARS on the secondhand market, I think I'm perfectly content just spending my time with this one. Fashion Nugget has yet to bore me or do me wrong.

Calling Out To Ghosts That Are No Longer There: The White Stripes at Sloss Furnaces

    The fact that the word “penultimate” exists exclusively as an adjective for next-to-last situations

feels almost egregious. I mean, did we really need an eleven letter word to describe this

scenario when a three-word combination totaling ten letters does the job just perfectly?

    Because let’s face it…second-to-last things are kinda just whatever. All the penumbra and

history and tall tales sprout effortlessly from every last whisper about the LAST of something,

the finality, the never-again crushing darkness of an abyss of nothingness for the rest of

eternity.

    So for me to roll in and tell you just how good the White Stripes were in their penultimate live

show…I understand the urge to call bullshit. But honestly, truthfully, with all personal bias

removed from shading of opinion here…this show is phenomenal.

    Visits to an Original House of Pancakes, a record store and some antique shops all replay as

relatively ordinary for daytime activities. If anything, my memory of the day sticks out as being

oppressively hot. With afternoon highs in the 90s, temps at Sloss Furnaces - the supposedly

haunted turn-of-the-century pig iron producing blast furnace turned concert venue - would hover

into the 80s well into the Stripes performance that night. Factor in the crush of 2400 bodies

crammed into the rudimentary shed-like structure with unforgiving open air walls and my recall

of the event is overwhelmingly punctuated by the feel, smell and general annoyance of sweat.

    Add in the decrepit, rusted, tetanus-y surroundings of the rest of the campus and the knowledge

that the number of workers who died there was rumored to be in the hundreds, their falling or

being pushed into the red hot fires of the furnaces only to be instantly incinerated and the

unshakable pall that casts on a spot even some five decades after the last flames there were

extinguished…needless to say it didn’t feel like an ordinary show by any means.

    Opener Dan Sartain would play in front of the biggest hometown crowd of his career and the

highlight for me (playing drums for him on this leg) was his inquiry to the crowd “So…how many

genuine Alabama rednecks we got here tonight?” After a strong response from the crowd, Dan

replied “Well, you made my life a living hell for 26 years. Thank you.”

    Just…perfect in every way.

    The show kicks off with “Dead Leaves And The Dirty Ground” and finds Jack taking liberties (for

the better) in a song where he usually did not. The particularly gnarly first note of feedback

curves into some choice guitar syncopations. As the most-frequent set opener across the

band’s career, it feels odd that this would be the last time the Stripes ever started a show with

“Dead Leaves” as their final gig would begin with a cover “Stop Breaking Down.”

    “Icky Thump” rolls into the fray wildly. To hear the assembled crowd, without prompting,

perfectly nail the patter of twelve “la’s” sung in rapid succession at the end of the second verse,

all mere weeks after the song’s release…it is a great reminder as to how WIDE this record

reached so quickly upon deployment.

    Leading into “When I Hear My Name” Jack, particularly chatty this evening, says “Meg and I

knew we was Alabama bound!” and despite any hammy undertones, it ultimately comes off as

sincere and heartfelt. Leading out from there, “Hotel Yorba” hits as particularly vivacious, Meg’s

accompanying vocals both vivid and spot-on.

    Jack’s unusual beginning to “The Denial Twist” and the improvised divergent lyrics in the

second verse, which seem to say “It’s the way you rock and roll!” leave the Stripes’ final

performance of this song as striking.

    While the extended, elegiac intro to “Death Letter” stands strongly as a haunting slice of slide

guitar, Jack’s improvised lyrics on the third verse delight. Similar to his moves earlier in “Dead

Leaves”, taking a specific part of a song that, to my memory, was seldom if ever switched up,

and reworking it on the spot, it all feels significant. Especially in light of the fact that the song

would essentially run out of its evolutionary runway in another 24 hours. So for him to sing…

It looked like ten thousand

Women around my front porch

Didn’t know if I’d listen to ‘em

Or keep on lookin’ north

I’m just reminded of the fact that no song should ever be considered complete or finished or

beyond reinterpretation.

    Acolytes of St. Francis of Assisi may be surprised to catch Jack’s in-the-moment name drop of

Brother Sun, Sister Moon in the midst of an extended rant toward the end of “Do.” Though it

may bear repeating that “Little Bird” and its “I wanna preach to birds” lyric is explicitly inspired by

the 13th century saint, it should require no leap of faith to imagine the 1972 Franco Zeffirreli film

depicting the life and times of Francis being viewed by Jack as a prepubescent altar boy.

    Eschewing his wealthy upbringing for a life of piety and monasticism, Francis would become

patron saint of Italy, the first documented stigmatic and the creator of the first live nativity scene.

If there’s a Catholic Hall of Fame, St. Francis of Assisi is definitely a first-ballot shoe-in.

    Nuggets like Jack’s borderline goofy drunk introduction of Meg for “In The Cold, Cold Night” with

“Miss Meg White takes center stage!” belies a truly stellar performance while brief, blink-and-

you-missed-it riff inversions on both “Astro” and “Little Cream Soda” are delicious little surprises

to revel in. And I’ll be damned if the organ-driven take on “I Want To Be The Boy To Warm Your

Mother’s Heart” is a welcome reminder that every last live version of this song is worth a listen. It never

fails or disappoints. It always satisfies.

    But the juiciest plum in this set is the unexpected, abrupt abandonment of “Seven Nation Army”

a mere ninety seconds into the song. When Jack says “I don’t know if we should play this song

in America anymore…I guess it doesn’t translate well…lost something in the translation” he

says so without knowing it’d be the last time that he and Meg ever played the song together.

    I remember this happening that night, but at the time I never mentioned it or thought to bring it

up.

    But 15 years later I had to.

    So in an email with the subject line “dumb white stripes question” I reached out to Jack for

clarity on the situation. His response…

oh i think i was just joking because it had become such a soccer chant at the time and that

europeans loved it “more” than americans for a minute there

and they weren’t singing any english lyrics just saying “po po po po” in Italy, so i was joking that

americans didn’t understand the “foreign language” of “po po po po po po po"

    That reads nicely.

    But I cannot help being reminded that in 2007 George W. Bush was still in office and folks were

still wildly pissed about his mere existence AND the ongoing overseas US military boondoggles.

That year would see a total of 904 American armed forces casualties in Iraq alone, the single

highest yearly total in the entirety of said occupation.

    So in Alabama, I dunno…a bunch of self-identifying, sweat-soaked rednecks chanting along…it

had just the faintest twinge of jingoistic misappropriation originating from the crowd…that basso

ostinato chopping along with the sinister Dorian mode overtone. It sounds ominous. “Army” is in

the title. I mean, it’s not a stretch.

    At the time I remember just having half the half-second thought along these confused political

lines and then literally have not thought about it since. The only contemporaneous review I can

find of the show, written by Andy Smith, attributes the scuttled “Seven Nation Army” as an effort

to prevent “the righteous and violent rigor of the lyrics (to) be misinterpreted as condoning an

unrighteous war.”

    So even if we do take Jack at his word here (which I think we should), what he says his intention

was, it’s worth noting that the perceived notion in the air that night, at least to some, was of an

entirely different tone. These are the shortcomings of interpretation. They will never rectify

themselves.

    So for Jack to switch the opening “Ball and Biscuit” lyrics to be…

Yes I am the Third Man, woman

But I am also the seventh son

…to me it reads as almost stentorian “LET ME SPELL IT OUT FOR YOU”-level of painting a

picture just perfectly clear in light of the supposed confusion or misinterpretation of anything

earlier in the set. With gusto.

    Yet the impromptu lyrics on “300 MPH Torrential Outpour Blues” are deadly…

There’s all kinds of emotions that a phone call ain’t gonna fix

You took me to the brink woman, took me everywhere I didn’t want to go but I went anyway

I never want you to question where I was headed, yes that’s where my head is nowadays

The complexity and grasp of human condition displayed in an off-the-top-of-the-head

exclamation, deftly cramming all those syllables into precise meter and landing on the rhyming

couplet, all while giving off the impression that the severity and pathos contained therein surely

must’ve been labored over intensely for hours, days, weeks even…well, isn’t that just the way to

knock us all over?

    Ending with “Boll Weevil” just a short trip up I-65 from the actual boll weevil monument in

Enterprise, Alabama, and some on-mic praise of Sartain is a perfect way to put that specific,

local, “we know exactly where we are” stamp on the entire evening. When Jack implores the

crowd to not go looking for any ghosts on the property after the show, you have half a mind to

respect those wishes.

    We in the touring party would not respect those wishes. After the show, a bunch of us (including

Meg, but not Jack) climbed the stairs, single-file, to a precarious perch overlooking the vast,

murky stretches of the complex. From above the entirely insufficient artificial light dappled the

tiniest spots and failed to make a dent in the existentially overpowering void.

    Even more dread-inducing was the spectre of a pitch-black decommissioned railroad tunnel.

From entry to exit, the path we were led to couldn’t have been more than 200 yards at most. But

I do not exaggerate when I say there was a complete absence of any outside illumination in this

stretch. Pure, unadulterated emptiness. Cannot see your own hand in front of your face insanity.

The shit that so many horror film plots are predicated on and has kept the night light business

booming since the passing of the torch from candle to light bulb.

    We got our hands on a single, meager flashlight, yet between the 8 of us (or so) that were on

the endeavor…it felt wildly inadequate to the point of palpable, impending fear.

    But there’s a funny little thing that happened within this little group of friends upon venturing into

the ghastly, haunted space. We were all still buzzy from the after effects of such a stunning live

concert in such unconventional environs. Simply put…we laughed our fucking asses off.

Hysterically. The entire time. What took us maybe five minutes to traverse passed in seemingly

five seconds. No one seemed like they could even be bothered with being scared. In the face of

the uncertain, of the overwhelming chasm…one light and each other was all we needed to lead

the way. To illuminate. To get us to the desired destination.

    In the end, we’re just calling out to ghosts, listening closely for any sign of a response.

Willie Nelson "No Place For Me" b/w "Lumberjack"

 

No Place For Me b/w Lumberjack

scum stats: estimated 300 copies pressed, supposedly 3-5 known in collections

Gotta say I was pretty wowed to find out that Willie Nelson's first record came out of Vancouver, Washington. Not Texas? Not Nashville? I'd known that Loretta Lynn's career had started in the Pacific Northwest, but I thought that was an anomaly, not something that had any parallels.

Kinda goes without saying that this single is hard to find. Rumor has it that the disc wasn't even available for purchase back when it was made in 1957. Supposedly people had to write in to the radio station KVAN where Willie was a DJ at the time (Vancouver which is right across the river from Portland, Oregon) and say how much they loved the record and then a copy would be mailed to them.

Damn...doesn't that just sound crazy thinking about? It certainly doesn't happen like that any more.

The a-side "No Place For Me" feels like a pretty solid, of-the-era country tune, Willie's voice rich and sonorous and strengthened by reverb, buoyed by picky guitar and with some fiddle buried deep in the mix. Before you know it, the damn thing is over in less time than it takes for me to microwave popcorn. That feels a little bit strange, could be good or bad depending on your mood or the day I suppose.

The flip is written by another DJ at KVAN at the time, Leon Payne, supposedly written about a local timber faller named Ray Norris. The stop-and-go, gas-and-brakes chug of this song feels pretty remarkable and noteworthy. The verse vocals presented largely without any accompaniment, the heavy-breathing intro and outro...just feels like there's something beyond the "old hat" vibe that most independent, Starday-pressend country singles from this time. Almost bordering on spoken jazz, Ken Nordine vibes. Heady stuff for '57, at least for me looking back 65 years later.

While it might be absolutely NO indication of what Willie would do come the rest of his career, man, first records with tales like this behind them just get me excited. Good times and good vibes.

The Last Thoughts Of My Thirties

minivan window 

already down

Detroit wind whipping

my hair against

my face

the cool

interstate seventy-five air

chills my cheeks

sunburned by baseball

just a reminder

that I am alive

Lord,

I just can’t keep from 

smiling

sometimes

Cybotron "Alleys Of Your Mind"

 Cybotron

"Alleys Of Your Mind" b/w "Cosmic Raindance"

scum stats: at least three pressings...red/white labels with black printing, red labels with black printing, white labels with black printing. Anecdotally red/white labels are likely the first pressing, as those seem to turn up the least frequently. I'd venture the red label is the follow-up pressing and the white labels seem to relatively ABOUND in quantity. At one point 30 years after the fact Juan Atkins claimed that the white label was a bootleg, but I think that's the fog of the decades. Original pressings plated and pressed at QCA in Cincinnati, pretty sure that white label ran at Archer a few months later.)

The beginning of Detroit techno. Never mind that it's a wholesale lift of the hook from Ultravox's "Mr. X", all you need to know is that this is the shit.

Something shifted on my cell phone in the past week where the first thing to play when I plug into the car is no longer Mike Birbiglia's "Abby" but instead, Cybotron's "Alleys Of Your Mind."

This. Makes. My. Day. Every. Day.

I first heard this song on an "Old School Sunday" Detroit radio show...seemingly each one of the R&B stations in town sets up at a local spot with a club (read: not radio) DJ spinning live. None of the tracks get announced or even identified. 

Anyway, I was driving on Vernor headed west bound at the Gratiot intersection and this one drops. Sounding like nothing I'd ever heard before. Sounding like a BAND, a vibe I'd never thought I could gather from a techno record.

And...nothing. No idea what the song was or how to even try to find it.

A day or two later a call to dear band mate Mick Collins had the question answered in about ten seconds. Imagine my delight in finding out it was a DETROIT record.

In a few weeks one of those white label copies would be procured from People's Records. To later discern the story that Atkins and band mate Rick Davis self-released the record, essentially selling it out of the trunks of their cars and moving roundabout 25k copies in that manner.

As Atkins debut release, it's INSANE that the first lyrics he ever unleashed into the world (at a mere 19 years old!) are "Who'll cry for modern man?" I think about this line ALL THE DAMN TIME it's soo stupid good. 

To hear Mick talk about how it hit in Detroit...everyone heard it...and everyone freaked the fuck out. To the point where EVERYONE was bumping this song and loving the hell out of it.

Oh to have been around Detroit in 1981.

I've not stopped loving this record since. The Dirtbombs covered it on our Party Store LP back in 2011 and it's one of my happier full circles having made that happen. 

I've made a habit of grabbing any copy of this record I ever run into. So I've got some extras floating around here. They are all usually HAMMERED...a sign that a disc was a TRUE party record, getting played all the time, not kept in a sleeve, folks dancing so hard they bump into the turntable. Every copy of this disc has lived a full life no doubt. And that, more than anything, is the sign of the most important kind of records.

More Trivia Questions

1.Richard Edson, Jim Sclavunos, Bob Bert, Steve Shelley. All were drummers in Sonic Youth. Match their name with the appropriate description

 

Who had a role in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”?

Whose dad won the Heisman Trophy?

Who was in a band called the Crucifucks?

Who plays drums on a Nick Cave and Kylie Minogue duet?

 

2. Spell Fela Kuti. Bonus points if you can spell Anikulapo

 

3. Which one of these people is NOT thanked in the liner notes to Nirvana’s In Utero?

Quentin Tarantino, Bobcat Goldthwaite, Pat Smear, James Osterberg. 

 

4. Produced by Kanye West, “Izzo” by Jay-Z features a sample of which classic Jackson 5 song?

 

5. Which sold more copies in week of release, Use Your Illusion I or Use Your Illusion II? Bonus points, what was the differential between the two within 10 percent?

 

6. Charlie Haden played bass on Ornette Coleman’s “Shape of Jazz to Come”. Two of his triplet daughters were members of which mid-Nineties Los Angeles band signed to DGC records? 

 

7. Animal Collective’s breakout album is titled “Merriweather Post Pavilion” after a well-loved concert venue. Which state is Merriweather Post Pavilion located? Bonus points…what city is Merriweather Post Pavilion located?

 

8. What was released first, Radiohead’s Pablo Honey or Smashing Pumpkin’s Siamese Dream?

Bonus points, name the exact date either of them were released:

 

9. “I’m eating mangoes in Trinidad with attorneys” is a lyric from which 1997 hit that samples both Audio Two’s “Top Billin” and the Bee Gee’s?

 

10. Originally recorded by Solomon Linda in South Africa in 1939 and released under the name “Mbube” which song seems to be resurrected every ten years or so in some movie or television commercial seeming kinda like some bullshit, but, you know, whatever, it’s cool, I guess. Pete Seeger with the Weavers and the Tokens are usually the versions you hear, but Ladysmith Black Mombazo, REM and a duet with Seth Rogen and Billy Eichner are also versions out there.

 

 

 

11. Which was released first…Nirvana’s “Nevermind” or Pearl Jam’s “Ten”? Bonus points, name the exact date either/both of them were released.

 

12. The video game Journey Escape features which rock and roll band?

 

13. The title track on Spiritualized’s 1997 album “Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space” is the only song on the album NOT entirely written by band leader Jason Pierce. A hit for both Elvis Presley and UB40, what song, originally edited out of the initial release of “Ladies…” was incorporated into this first song on the album?

 

14. Within 5, what is the BPM of Outkast’s “Bombs Over Bagdad”?

 

15. In the chorus of her song “Nude as the News” Cat Power mentions Jackson and Jesse, the names of the children of which of her musical idols?

 

16. What is the name of the Harlem Globetrotters theme song?

 

17. What is Stevie Wonder’s birth name?

 

18. The Black and Brown Trading Stamp Corporation was founded in Oakland, California in 1969, inspired by traditional “green stamp” booklets but instead focused on driving business to black-owned establishments in California. Who was the soul and funk singer who was depicted on the Black and Brown stamps, in addition to being the person who put up the money to start the company?

 

19. What year did the Fisk Jubilee Singers form?

 

20. According to “7 Rings” what are some of Ariana Grande’s favorite things?

 

21. What one specific thing do the bands the Fluid, the Melvins and the Jesus Lizard all have in common? 

 

22. True or false: every member of the Strokes has released a solo album.

 

23. Buju Banton, Louis Farrakhan and Ramadan are all mentioned in which Fugees song? 

 

24. Based on the gameplay of Terminator 2: Judgement Day, Revolution X is a 1994 video game “starring” which rock and roll band? 

 

25. True or false: The chorus of Vanilla Ice’s “Ice Ice Baby” originates from the signature chant of the African American fraternity Alpha Phi Alpha? 

 

26. Europe, Alabama, Boston, America, Kansas - which one of these bands was not formed in the place where they took their name from? 

 

27. How many times has John Frusciante joined the Red Hot Chili Peppers? 

 

28. The band Toto backs Michael Jackson on which song from his Thriller album? 

 

29. Ravi Shankar has two successful musician daughters. Name them. 

 

30. In 1997 Jimbo Mathus of the Squirrel Nut Zippers released an album titled “Play Songs for Rosetta” as a means to help raise funds for his childhood nanny, Rosetta. Who was Rosetta’s father?