MILB: The Music of Phineas and Ferb

I know I know.  Not something that everyone knows anything about, so why write it?  Because the people who write the songs for a Phineas and Ferb cartoon are geniuses.  Seriously, the music for this cartoon could sometimes be played on the radio and no one would know the difference.

Here are a few examples that will show you what I mean:

Max Modem and the Mainframes - "Alien Heart" - Phineas and Ferb's dad tries to re-make himself into a 1980s one-hit wonder.  Turns out their mom was a one-hit wonder, and has been asked to be a part of a 1980s nostalgia concert.  So the boys create Max Modem, and they perform this song:

Now tell me that couldn't have actually been a song in the 1980s?  I'd listen to that song right now!

Love Handel - "You Snuck Your Way Right Into My Heart" - Turns out that Phineas and Ferbs parents' first date was at the last Love Handle concert, and their huge hit was this solid hair ballad.  (Sounds like something from the late Eighties early nineties.)  The boys decided to reunite the band for their parents' anniversary.  This was the song that they played.  Best lyric has to be, "Like a Ninja of love, rappelling down from above..."

Tiny Cowboy - "I'm Talking About Meatloaf" - Candace, their sister, is obsessed with Tiny Cowboy.  She sees them at a meatloaf festival (with guest star Jamie Oliver) at which the band wins with their meatloaf.  The song they sing at the end is fantastic.  It's obvious the band are modeled after Oasis (especially "Definitely Maybe" or "What's the Story" Oasis) and the song is perfect.

Baljeet and Buford - "Frenemies" - This is Lovely English Lass' favorite of the songs, I think.  While entertaining people at a retirement home, the bully of the show and the brain get together to put on a great floor show.  For goodness sake, the chorus has the line, "He's like my least favorite brother!"  Oh yeah, this is all bookended by the Mongol army showing up in present times and battling potato gremlins.  Just watch the clip.

There are so many examples, but I just thought I'd put in a few here.  Whoever you are that writes these songs, I thank you.  I mean, my son and I watch the show all the time, and it just makes me smile when I hear many of these songs.  Good job!

If you don't have a kid, you should still try to watch it.  It's intelligent and quite funny all together.

My Inner Lester Bangs: "Turn you on" by Mi Casa

My son, Crazy Little Man, has become obsessed with a local band recently.  Mi Casa has a song he likes called, "Jika."  He sings along with it when it comes on the radio, and I found myself actually liking the group too.

The story of Mi Casa isn't one of a band that's been together for years and suddenly finding success with a great song.  No, they met in 2011 at a lounge and started playing together and then hit it huge.  This actually qualifies as an overnight success.  Their first hit was in late 2011, and they've already released two albums.  One of the things I like about this group is that they seem to know they've caught the luck, and they're very down to earth.  I like that.  The members of the group are Dr. Duda, who produces, Mo-T plays the trumpet, and JSomething is the vocalist and guitarist.  (JSomething's real name is Joao, which I guess is how he has been introduced for a long time in South Africa.  He was born in Portugal and moved here when he was 7.)  Their new album is called Su Casa, and the very first song on the album is "Turn You On."

The music of Mi Casa can be classified as chilled out dance music with a Jazz element to it.  You can definitely groove to it, but it can also be on in the background at a dinner party and you'd be fine with it.  "Turn You On" has that smoothness to it that gives a little bit of the 1990s vibe to it.  JSomething's voice is very evocative, and definitely should be used in a slow-motion scene in a movie where a man and woman are doing the making eyes over dinner, interspersed with scenes of them kissing and doing adult things back at the house.

This song is a jam, to be sure.  After the chorus, a longing cry of "IIIIIIII, just want to turn you on," followed by the echo of background singers, there is a sax and trumpet play that reminds me of Goldfish's music lately, and of 1930s-1940s jazz.

I have to say one of the things I dig about this group is that they aren't trying to be someone else.  They are themselves, all the way to using the South African colloquialism, "now now."  "Now Now" doesn't really have a meaning attached to it.  It means sometime from now until later.  "Just now" however, doesn't really mean anything.  It's something you say to someone to get them off your back, "I'll do it just now."  They also dedicate one of the songs on the album to "Tata Madiba" or Nelson Mandela to you and I.  Doesn't get any more South African than that, unless it came with a braai and biltong.

Anyways, this song just has a groove to it that you'll really enjoy.  South African music is starting to make it big in the world, and I think these guys definitely have a shot at being something in the future.  Not to brag, but I do have a track record of calling it when bands might hit big.  Give Mi Casa a shot.  If you like it, you might find yourself playing it one night while drinking a nice red wine from South Africa, wondering when the next rugby match is on.

MILB: "Paid in Full" by Eric B. and Rakim

When you're the best, you don't have to sound like the rest.  At a time when other MCs in the rap field (LL Cool J, Kool Mo Dee, Chuck D) were high energy, Rakim decided it was time to slow the flow.  It changed the face of rap, and made for one hell of a good song.

"Paid in Full" was one of the biggest songs ever for Eric B. and Rakim.  It came on their first studio album, and definitely was something new to the New York rap scene.

Understand, at this time, the majority of the rap world could be found within 100 square miles. The New York metro area was basically it.  The Beastie Boys hadn't yet decamped to LA to record Paul's Boutique, and NWA was at least a year away from turning rap on it's ear.  Ice-T was big with "6 in the morning" but it wasn't anywhere near as universal as the stuff still coming out of New York.  Basically, it was the 5 Boroughs and Long Island, with Philly thrown in as well.  At this time, Eric B. decided he needed an MC if he was going to be big.  The story goes that he was taken by a friend to one rapper's house, but the guy wasn't home.  So they went to Rakim's house, and that was that.

Rakim tackled rapping with a methodical means.  He wrote all his lyrics, and read them off the paper.  Meanwhile, with a booming voice and a slow flow, he captures your attention in a way the normal yelling wouldn't.  The dramatic difference between Chuck D and Rakim (both of whom are very political in their rhymes) is fantastic.  Both are heavy-weights in rap, but I think Rakim is the better MC. His cock-sure rhymes put me in the mood of a beat poet.  He definitely wasn't the first with the slow flow (I'd say that was more Slick Rick), but he was the best.  Considering all the people the man influenced, you could say that he was one of the most influential people in the history of Rap.  I mean, Tupac, Biggie, Snoop and Nas credit him as being an influence.  Snoop even covered this song in the movie "Old School."

With "Paid in Full" the song starts with a typical hip-hop beat of drums and cymbals.  Then strangely, the bass and a flute come in.  There aren't many instances when a flute is used in rap music, and this may have been one of the first.  Eric B. then starts asking Rakim questions, basically giving a shout-out to their team.  (Management, Agent and Record Company all are mentioned.)  Then Rakim goes into his flow:

"Thinkin of a master plan/cuz ain't nothin but sweat inside my hand/so I dig into my pocket all my money is spent/so I dig deeper but still comin up with lint" 

That's a pretty good opening right there.  Everyone's been there previously, when you just don't have any money.  The rap goes on to discuss how he can make money and the options he has.  He used to rob people, but he doesn't feel right doing that any more.  So he decides that he and Eric B. are going to make music so he can get paid without doing something illegal.  (Funnily, he says he just wants to record and eat fish, which is his favorite dish.)  The beat keeps going while Eric B. jumps back in to tell Rakim they need to visit their girlfriends because his girl is mad that they took too long to make the album.  This is probably meant as an inside joke, since it only took a week to record the entire album.

This song is 3 minutes and 49 seconds, but the rapping makes up maybe half of the song.  However, it's still very influential to the history of the genre.  Rakim usually rapped about how great his rhymes were, or his religion (Islam), so he didn't get into the whole gangster rap idea.  This album has been rated as one of the 500 best albums of all time.  It's certainly one that will give you an appreciation for the work put into it.  Eric B. had a great ear for beats and especially what would go well with Rakim's flow.  Shortly after this album came out, NWA dropped "Straight Outta Compton" and the Rap scene changed forever.  What would rap sound like now if it was Eric B. and Rakim that made the huge splash that NWA did?  It's an interesting thought.  Personally I think it was a media hype that made the difference.  Why listen to a sweet flow when you can be completely horrified by gangster images.  Still, "Paid in Full" is a great song, and one you should listen to.  Listen to it as an artifact of what could have been in the rap world, and then listen to it because it's a great song.

MILB: "STUNNER" by Dan le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip

Sometimes you stumble across a group that is so random that you have to love them.  I feel that way about Dan le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip.  I first heard one of their songs back in 2007, I think, on a British TV Show called "Soccer AM".  (Weird that they call it Soccer AM, and not Football AM.  I digress.)  Their song was "Thou Shalt Always Kill" and I thought it was awesome.  Pip is a poet, not a rapper.  Dan le Sac puts beats to the thing and create a mash of goodness that can't be pigeonholed as rap or spoken word.

Anyways, this week the finally released another song.  "STUNNER" is much darker than "Thou Shalt Always Kill" and "Beat that my Heart skipped", their other song that I adore.  This one is just full a on assault.  The fantastic "chorus" of "The World Don't revolve around you but it should/ not saying you're perfect but you're really really good."

The beginning of the song is Scroob rapping a capella, "I know it sounds weird/ I do want you to look back on this and smile, but/ I kind of want that smile to be through tears."  Dark, but also an interesting take.  Everyone wants to be remembered happily, but also kind of want the person who's left you to be sad that it ended.

The lyrics are just on another level.  "That light at the end of the tunnel was a fire."  "Don't need the world to love me, I just need you to."  "If Romance is dead/ blame the hopeless romantics."  Or my favorite one: "I wore my heart on my sleeve and you stole my (expletive) shirt."  This is just a verbal assault for 3 minutes and 59 seconds.  The only time it lets up is during the break, but even then the tension still remains as Dan le Sac's beat and music continue the attack on your senses.

It could be considered a love song, I suppose, if Stephen King wrote love songs.  The music is hard, and there are quite a few curse words in it, so don't listen to it around kids.  It very much reminds me of the first time I heard industrial music back in the early 90s.  It's jarring, and unsettling, but that's one of the things that music can, and should do.  It shouldn't be bubblegum pop, with no meaning or depth to it.  There needs to be something visceral in the music to make you feel one thing or another.   If you heard this song on the radio (which you won't) then you'd definitely remember it.  It's not something that you can listen to passively.  Songs that I think are like that are NIN "Head Like a Hole", Filter's "Hey Man Nice Shot" and to a lesser extent all of Minor Threat's songs.

It may not be to your liking, though.  If you don't like it, that's ok.  However, give Dan le Sac and Scroobius Pip a listen to on some of their other songs.  "Beat that my heart skipped" might be more to your style, or even "Thou Shalt Always Kill."  All I know is that I've listened to "STUNNER" probably 40 times since I downloaded it last weekend, and I will probably listen to it even move this weekend.  Not because it speaks directly to me, but because I dig the song.

MILB: "Hell" by the Squirrel Nut Zippers

There are times when you hear a song that is obviously tongue in cheek, but realize it would fit in very well in an old fashioned Fire and Brimstone Baptist tent revival in Alabama.  You can almost feel the heat and humidity coming off this song.  I like it a lot.

The first time I heard about The Squirrel Nut Zippers I was in College.  They were lumped into the nascent "Swing" revival happening in the mid-to-late 1990s, but this group was more than Big Band Swing.  They had a bit of everything.  Harlem Hot Music, Klezmer, Delta Blues, Swing of course, and a bit of calypso.  It was an amazing blend, and one that should have gotten more traction.  If I'm honest, they didn't do too badly.  They played President Clinton's inaugural, had a stint on the Tonight Show and a platinum album, so that's not too bad.  Still, they should be played more often then during Halloween in the States.  Plus, the name of the band comes from a headline about a guy that got drunk on moonshine, climbed a tree and wouldn't come down.  (The type of moonshine is apparently called Nut Zipper.)

Now, onto the song.  "Hell" is supposed to sound like a street corner preacher trying to reach out to the lost souls about what happens when people die.  The dramatic telling of how things will be in hell definitely takes me back to Revival! time in the South.  You'll hear them talk about how horrible hell is, and how everyone that goes there is tormented forever and ever.  Also you won't be able to hide anything in eternity, because everyone will know.  The lyrics are very demonstrative:

"This is a place where eternally/fire is applied to the body/ teeth are extruded and bones are ground/ and baked into cakes which are passed around."

or:

"Beauty, talent, fame, money, refinement, top skill and brain/ but all the things you try to hide/ will be revealed on the other side."

You can almost picture a man with a magnificently coiffed head of hair, a sharp suit, and an organ playing in the background, saying these things, right?

Moving on from the message, the use of live musicians, and a throwback sound to the early 20th century, gave this song a real "new" feel.  That sounds strange, but it was comfortable but different.  I personally liked it.  But then again I liked bands like Cherry Poppin' Daddies and Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, so take that what you will.

Go listen to the song if you haven't heard it.  If you have, listen to it again.  The musicianship is great, the singing definitely sounds like something from the 20s or 30s, and it even has the call and response which gives it a Cab Calloway sense.  Love it.  (And listen for the very ending where you hear someone say, "I broke the chandelier."  Random, but funny.)

Give it a try everyone.  You might surprise yourself and find your toe tapping.

MILB: "Send Me an Angel" by Real Life (1989 Remix)

This is a lost classic of the late 1980s.  Real Life never really got the credit they deserved from this song.  I was listening to it this morning and decided it'd be my song for the day.

Real Life were a band from Australia that really only released three albums with the original line-up.  Their biggest hit, "Send me an Angel" came from their first album, Heartland.  Since then, the lead singer has basically recorded by himself under the name.  To make matters worse, most people in the US think this song is from the Pet Shop Boys due to it being mislabeled by downloads when Napster was big.  How much does that suck?

Anyways, onto the song.  It was pretty big in the States.  It featured in two movies, RAD (which is where I first heard the song) and The Wizard starring a young Fred Savage and Jenny Lewis, lead singer for Rilo Kiley.  Pretty random hookups, don't you think?

Real Life decided to release a Greatest Hits album in 1989, and featured "Send Me An Angel (1989 Remix)" which went to No. 26 on the charts in the US.  Not too bad really.  So what is it about this song that brings me back to it?

Well, in 1989, I was 13.  Right about the time when I realized that heartbreak was an actual thing, and something that I would have to get used to for a bit.  (Again, Nick Hornby was right: Did I listen to Pop Music because I was sad?  Or was I sad because I listened to Pop Music.  Seriously, the man is an awesome writer.)  Listening to the song with lyrics like, "Empty drinks will only disappoint/ in a room behind your smile./  But don't give up/ don't give up/ you can be lucky in love" how can you NOT love this as a pubescent adolescent.  It's both sad and hopeful at the same time!  If you've been unlucky in love, while all of your friends are in relationships (even if it is only junior high school relationships) then you kind of feel left out.  Listening to music, I've always said, can be a cheap form of therapy.  Plus, it reminds me that even though I was down for a bit, I've picked myself up.  (I was no Lothario, however.  And yes, I did say that just to use Lothario.  11 pts in Scrabble my friends!)

The music is strictly 1980s synth pop, with a dash of unnecessary electric guitar.  However, it's a great song, and one that definitely takes me back to that time.  There are so many songs that have been forgotten in the US from that time period.  (I hear them here, due to, as I've said previously, South Africa being about 10 years behind in their music.)  I might start picking some of them out so people can remember them.  Give Real Life a listen, and most especially "Send Me an Angel."  Great song from a great time in life.  Now if they'd only release "RAD" on DVD, it'd be perfect.

My Inner Lester Bangs: "Wonderwall" by Oasis and by Ryan Adams

It is hard to do a cover of a brilliant song and make it your own.  I'm thinking "All Along The Watch Tower" where Dylan started performing it like Hendrix, or when Trent Reznor said that "Hurt" no longer belonged to him because Johnny Cash made it his own. (An amazing cover, by the way, and Reznor was right.  I can't hear his version any more, all I can hear is Johnny Cash's version.)

Well, I think this does it.  First of all, I love the Oasis version.  It reminds me of 1995, and how that song just blew up in the US.  I remember singing it outside the White House on my way back from the Delta Gamma formal at 1 in the morning.  (I seem to remember one of the girls in the group yelling for Bill to come outside, and seeing the Secret Service guy move to get a better shot if she decided to jump the fence.  Good times.)

It's got a great opening guitar to it, and owes a lot of influence to the Beatles (like all of Oasis' music does).  Liam's voice carries it, and the movement of the strings really brings out the melancholy of the song.  It's a great song, and rightfully thought of as a proper sample of Brit Pop music from the 90s.  To be honest, it's not the best song off their second album, "(What's the Story) Mourning Glory?" but it is probably their most famous.  (The best song off that album is "Don't Look Back in Anger".  Their best song of all time is "Live Forever" but that's another blog post.)   It's been covered by tons of people, including an easy listening cover that actually got to number 2 on the British pop lists.

This was the song that really brought them out to America.  Everyone was talking about Oasis, and then following it up with "Don't Look Back In Anger" cemented them as the biggest band in the world.  Strangely enough, they then just fell apart.  Watch the movie Live Forever and see how bad it got.  Right now the brothers are in two separate bands and don't even talk to each other.  Liam didn't show up for a gig that was being taped, but sat in the balcony and heckled Noel.  That's some demented stuff right there.

Now, onto the Ryan Adams cover.  It is available on the album Love is Hell.  It's completely acoustic guitar with an organ and piano, and timing on the phrasing gets changed, which changes the whole context of the song.  It goes from a somewhat melancholy song to one of want and need.  It's filled with emotion, befitting his voice.  Adams just hits this out of the park.  The song, the phrasing, and the way it ends are so good you think this is the way it was supposed to be sung.  Apparently Oasis did as well, as they sometimes changed the way it was sung to fit how Adams sang it.  When the original changes their song to fit your cover version, you know you've done something right.

Ryan Adams should be much better known that he is.  Sadly he's going deaf, and broke up his band The Cardinals.  Heck, he should get a mention just for writing "Stars Go Blue."  He's had some demons in his life, but he's married to Mandy Moore now, and writing books as well as releasing new material, so hopefully people catch on.  Listen to both versions of this song, as it's brilliant, but I think I like Adams' version best.

MILB: "Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth With Money in my Hand" By Primitive Radio Gods

You know, it's not often that you get a title like that one above.  I'm going to shorten it to "Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth" for the rest of the blog post, OK?

In the summer of 1996, I had decided to stay in Washington, DC to be with my girlfriend instead of going back to Florida and working.  I'd just finished the worst semester of my university career, and was working 2 jobs in DC to help pay the rent for a place I lived on 25th Street, NW in Washington with my Fraternity brother Micky.  Then, it went all kinds of weird.

Less than a week after moving into my new place and starting work at the Orioles Baseball Store on Farragut Square and at GW's Police Department, my girlfriend dumped me.  She said, and I quote, "You're not who I thought you were."  Always a head scratcher that one, right?  Who did you think I was exactly?  (Actually, I'm cool with what happened.  I met the woman of my dreams and have two lovely children with her, so no looking back.)

I digress, though.  Over that summer, and the depression that came with it, I listened to music to help me cope.  It's a reoccurring thing in my life: whenever I feel down I turn to music to make me feel better.  Usually listening to music that is sad when I'm sad for some reason cheers me up.  So it was that I listened to a lot of August and Everything After by Counting Crows, and then this song came out.

"Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth" was from an Alt-Rock band called Primitive Radio Gods.  I'd never heard of them before, but I liked the song.  It helped that they sampled BB King, who I do love quite a bit.  The sample, from BB's "How Blue Can You Get" was brilliant, and added a touch of melancholy to the hip-hop beat playing underneath.

 I been downhearted baby/I been downhearted baby/EEVVVER since the day we met/EEVVVER since the day we met.

That's a slice of fried gold right there for someone getting over a breakup.  You might as well called the song, "I been dumped."

Recently I started listening to the song again, and really started to listen to the lyrics.  This song is fantastic lyrically.

We sit outside and argue all night long/ about a god we've never seen/but never fails to side with me. 

Wow, that's powerful, and something that gets you thinking.

A life is time, they teach us growing up/ the seconds ticking killed us all/a million years before the fall/ you ride the waves and don't ask where they go/ you swim like lions through the crest/ and bathe yourself on zebra's flesh.

This is deep stuff, and it's in a song that was featured in the movie "The Cable Guy."  How did that happen?!?  And why isn't this song recognized for how good it is?  I mean, Primitive Radio Gods didn't make a cent off the record, as they probably had to pay for the use of the BB King sample.  Still, something this good should be heard more often than it is now.  I know it was released 17 years ago, but it's still a great song.  It should be brought back out so that lovelorn teenagers everywhere have something good to be moody to, not Justin Bieber singing, "Baby".

Don't lose this song people.  Find it on youtube, or buy it. You'll thank me, and it may take you back to 1996.  What were you doing back then?  Do you remember this song?  What does it mean to you?  If you've never heard it: Find it now.  Go on, you'll thank me later.

MILB - "Two Step" by Dave Matthews Band

Here's the top 10 list of the greatest concerts I've ever been:

10) Linkin Park (opening act: Lost Prophets) - Cardiff, Wales.  Great time, great concert, and Lost Prophets were from Wales, so very cool opener.
9) Huey Lewis and the News (opening act: Robert Cray Band) - Daytona Beach, FL.  Don't laugh, this was an AWESOME concert.
8) Rob Zombie (Opening act: Lacuna Coil) - 9:30 Club. Great time with my friend Justin (who bought the tickets) and the day I found out I was going to be a father.
7) Blues Traveller, Ziggy Marley, Black Crowes - Nissan Pavilion, VA - My sophomore year at University, and just an amazing time, including my number 2 favorite ever concert experience: The Black Crowes singing "She Talks to Angels" with a single light shining down on the lead singer.  Just awesome.
6) Dave Matthews Band (Opening Act: Bella Fleck and the Flecktones) - Nissan  Pavillion, VA - Amazing concert with friends, and the number 3 and 5 favorite concert experiences (which I'll get to shortly) with "Two Step" and "Ants Marching".
5) Chris Cornell (Red Rock Festival) - Old Steel Refinery, Luxembourg - Amazing set and he did a LOT of Soundgarden tunes.  Plus it was in an ACTUAL old steel refinery.  The concert hall used to be where they melted the steel.
4) Placebo (Can't remember opening act) - Carling Live, Hammersmith, London. - Just amazing, with my buddy Charlie.
3) REM (Opening Act: Buffalo Tom) - Nissan Pavilion, VA - Amazing time.  My friends and I bought grass seats, but since it had undersold, they gave us actual seats up close.  Awesome set, and very cool.  (This was the Monster tour, so it was the full band.)
2) The White Stripes (Opening Act: Blanche) - Alexandra Palace, London. - I've written about this before.  It was awesome, and I'd give anything to see that show again.
1) Blur (no opener, Reading Festival) - Reading, UK. - The Number 1 best concert experinece I've ever had with "song 2" causing the ground to shake.

Honorable Mention: U2 - RFK Stadium.  I bounced for the gig, but got to see the show for free and they paid me as well.

No reason why I wrote that up there.  It's my blog and I'll do what I want.  But, look at Number 6.  Two of my top 5 greatest concert moments happened in number 6.  Wild, I know.  The "Ants Marching" part was because Dave was joined by Bella Fleck on the Banjo, and they had so much fun with the song that Dave turned his back on the audience and jammed for a good 5 minutes like no one else was there.  Great time.

However, "Two Step" is my number 3 greatest experience at a concert.  Let me start off by saying I am in no way a huge Dave Matthews Band fan.  I do have a few of his albums, and like his music, but I've only seen him once.  I think my friend Em might have seen him at least 50 times by now.  I've found that Dave Matthews fans are a lot like Dead fans: they'll watch them anywhere.  (Phish fans are the most like Dead fans though.  To be fair, most of the Dead fans I know are pretty cool people that are intelligent, and the die-hard Phish fans I know can be stumped by asking: "What were we just talking about?"  It's a joke people!)

Anyways, "Two Step" is from the album Crash which came after their incredibly successful album Under the Table and Dreaming.  It was never a big hit on radio, and to be honest, I probably only heard it a few times before the above mentioned concert.  It was a good song, but it never really stuck out, like "So Much to Say" or even "Crash."  Moved nicely, with a good bassline, nice violin work, and a good sax part.

Then, I saw it in concert.  I went with my friends from University, and if I remember correctly drove down with my friend Sheandra.  We were having a great time, and as the sun set and the lights came on, Dave started this song.

It was amazing.  I knew most songs are better live than on record (but not all), but I couldn't believe how much better this sounded in person.  The full effect was stunning.  The band, the lights, the people cheering, everything just clicked at that one point and time. The song moved with a fluidity that should have been there on the album, and is there now when I listen to it.  Dave's semi-falsetto was right on, the sax wasn't too loud or too soft, and the violin part melded perfectly.  (And before you ask, no I wasn't high.)

It points out that sometimes a single musical experience can forever change the way you listen to a song.  The music is the same on my iPod as on the CD, but when I listen to it, I hear the music from that night.  It's still as clear to me today as it was 15 years ago.  (Man was that a long time ago.)

I'm still not a DMB superfan, but they will always have a warm spot in my heart for "Two Step."  Give it a listen.  (This one is pretty awesome.)  You may not hear what I heard that day, but it's still a very good song.

My Inner Lester Bangs: "Jolene" by The White Stripes

The first time I ever heard Jack White sing "Jolene" was at the Alexandra Palace in London with my friend Ang.  She'd gotten tickets to the White Stripes gig and sold me one.  (Thanks Ang!)  The opening act was a band from Detroit named Blanche, a kind of alt. country/ Southern Gothic band that had an auto-harp in it.  (Try to find something from them, as they were a pretty great band.  The lead singer started the concert with, "Hello, we're Blanche." and then started playing.  I liked that.)  The gig was great, and in the middle of it, Jack White started to play a very haunting song I'd heard before, but couldn't place.

"Jolene" as everyone knows is a Dolly Parton song.  It's the type of 70s Country song you'd expect:  Married woman's husband is in love with someone else, and she's begging the woman to leave her man alone.  It's a fantastic song in Dolly's repertoire, and perfect for her.  (Although I certainly couldn't see anyone stealing Dolly's man.  She'd probably get a good beating for that.)  Still great song, and not one you'd expect to be covered by The White Stripes.

However, Jack White is a fan of that stuff.  He was originally in a cow-punk band in Detroit named Goober and The Peas, and has also worked extensively with Loretta Lynn.  He loves old country music, and it has influenced him probably as much as Son House has.  So it's not a stretch for them to cover a song.

The one thing you have to get over is that Jack White doesn't change the words from feminine to masculine to make you feel better about it.  There is no, "I'm begging of you, please don't take my girl."  He leaves it as man.  It changes the meaning of the song, and certainly gives the listener a new perspective on what's being said.

Then of course is the sound of Jack White's voice.  Dolly's voice, even though the song is sad, still has a bit of a bounce in it.  (It's Dolly Parton for goodness sake.)  Jack's voice has more of a hard edge to it (as it would) but also a bit more of an urgency in it.  There's an actual pleading in the voice.  You can hear the heartache.

The music is of course heavy on guitar, but also very haunting at the beginning, with a lone guitar with an effect in the background.  Starts the song with a bit of foreboding.

Live, this song just rocked.  I can't tell you how the Ally Pally blew up while this song was being played.  I'm sad that the White Stripes decided to call it a day, but at least you can listen to the music.  See if you can find this song, and I think you'll like it.

My Inner Lester Bangs: "Come With Me Now" by Kongos

A very happy Thanksgiving to all my American readers.  That being my wife, my family, old friends from Port Orange that are on the night shift at the hospital, and random people who googled "Lester Bangs Gay".  (That's a real search that found my blog, btw.  Not sure where that came from.)

Anyways, back to MILB on Friday.  This week, I'm going to give you a band from South Africa.  Kongos are 4 brothers whose father was a famous (in South Africa) singer named John Kongos.  John's biggest hit is in fact something you might have heard before.  It was a song called "He's Going to Step On You Again."  In 1990 it was released as "Step On" by The Happy Mondays.  (With the great line of "you're twistin my melon man.")

Well, Kongos are a rock band from South Africa with a very eclectic sound.  I mean, "Come With Me Now" starts off with an accordion.  How many rock bands would have the guts to do that?  Not many I can tell you.  They sound like nothing I've heard before in music.  I definitely like that they are trying to stretch themselves, and find a way to get their music out there.  In South Africa they are huge.  I mean, they played at Joburg Day 2012, and people on the radio still talk about it.  (It was in September.)  They and the Parlotones are the forefront of a large group of music coming from South Africa.

Now, onto the song.  The lyrics speak of anxiety and fear, which is something we know a bit about.  I can certainly identify with the first verse: "Afraid to lose control; caught up in this world; I've wasted time I've wasted breath; I think I've thought myself to death."  Powerful stuff really.

It's a hard driving song with a lull in the middle for the bridge.  The bridge has a haunting quality to it, with the music slowing and lowering with the main part sung in almost a falsetto ("Far Away, I heard him say") answered by a low, almost guttural growl, ("Come with me now") and trading back and forth, almost call and response.  It's a good trick as the song picks up again and thrashes it's way onward.

At the end, it gets a bit deep but even then there's a bit of humor in the subject.  The last verse says, "Confused what I thought with something I felt; Confuse what I feel for something that's real; I tried to sell my soul last night; funny, he wouldn't even take a bite."

Go out and buy the Kongos CD.  I think you'll be pleasantly surprised by it.

My Inner Lester Bangs: "I'd Die Without You" by P.M. Dawn

So while the early 1990s are probably best remembered for Grunge and Gangster Rap, in reality one of the largest exports from the US in terms of music was the R&B love song.  There were TONS of groups out there making songs about love, hurt, loss and pain.  If you were a lovelorn teenager during that time period (and I think we've already established that in fact I was) then this area was ripe for you to be sitting in your room listening to sad music pining for the girl that just broke your heart.  (And since that happened to me about once a month, according to some, then I listened to a lot of sad songs about love and loss.)

In the movie and the book, High Fidelity, Nick Hornby wrote the following:

“What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?"

Brilliant, eh?  Hornby is one of my favorite writers, and not just because his stories remind me a lot of my friends.  He also wrote an entire book where he donated the proceeds for the school where his child on the spectrum goes.  So... lots of overlap.

Anyways, back to the music.  In the early 1990s there were a slew of R&B groups that came out and made very sad songs.  Boyz II Men of course were the kings with, "On Bended Knee", "End of the Road" and basically any other song off either the Boomerang Soundtrack or their second album.  All 4 One came in with "I Swear" which they ripped off of a country singer.  Jodeci had, "Forever My Lady" and "Lately."  There was even a group called Shai that had one hit called, "Comforter."  It wasn't about a duvet, people.

Probably the most interesting of these groups was P.M. Dawn.  Two brothers, Prince Be and JC the Eternal, burst onto the scene with "Set Adrift on Memory Bliss," a song buoyed by the sampling of "True" by Spandau Ballet and their looks.  One was very heavy, one very tall and thin, and both wore a lot of paisley and small glasses.  Great look, and one that seemed to work well for them.

Then came "I'd Die Without You" from 1992.  It was on the Boomerang Soundtrack, and it was overshadowed on that soundtrack by Boyz II Men's "End of the Road" which was the longest serving #1 on the charts at that time.  But I think "I'd Die Without You" was a better song.  Heresy, I know.

Go and listen to them again.  "End of the Road" is a bit over drawn out with a larger sound.  Even the spoken part is a bit much.  Meanwhile, "I'd Die Without You" is a piano based song that is based off more the emotion, rather than the feeling.  You can feel "End of the Road."  "I'd Die Without You" is deeper.  It hits you in the gut because of its simplicity, and the never release of the piano in the background.  The walking bass is a nice touch as well.  The finger snaps at the beginning and end also add a simplicity that was missing at the time from R&B.  And at the end when one of the snaps isn't in synch it makes you pay more attention than you would normally to it.

The lyrics are also just brilliant.  I always saw it as a guy losing his girl that he's wronged in the past, and trying to keep her around, but not being able to do it.  "Is it my turn to hold you by the hands, tell you I love you and you not hear me?  Is it my turn to totally understand to watch you walk out of my life and not do a damn thing?" Or: "Is it my turn to be the one to cry?  Isn't it amazing how somethings just completely turn around."  These are fantastic lyrics.

Listen to this song and tell me it doesn't give you a reaction in some way.  I mean I heard it fit pretty well within the context of the movie, but man does it hit you even without the movie!  You can picture me probably as a 16 year old in 1992 hurting because the girl I liked didn't like me.  (And before I get a bunch of, "You Wuss" comments, guys do think like that too.  If you don't believe me, go back and listen to some of the songs from the 50s and 60s.  They had that same reaction back then.  It's universal.)

I'm sad that kids these days have no idea probably of P.M. Dawn.  JC the Eternal left the group and Prince Be had  two strokes and lost his leg to diabetes.  Still, I hope they have a revival some day.  This song is WAY better than Justin Bieber trying to be Justin Timerlake in his last video, and it'd be nice to have people appreciate it for what it was: a great song that made itself unique in a time when it could have just blended in.  Give it a listen and let me know what you think.