Ouch. That’s Hot.

This book has been on my shelf for about 10 years.  Since the late nineties, it’s been skulking there in the corner.  Bright-oranged and baby-blued, unmissable in girth and shelf-sagging heft.  (Can’t find it?  Look for the low spot on Shelf “W”.)  This year marked my third attempt at getting through, though I must confess that my motives had not been pure.

My first swing at INFJ was driven by thoughts of Ought.  As a recent graduate in the fantastic field of English Literature, I knew that it was my duty to continue my education.  (Call me old-fashioned, but I still buy into the idea that the goal of a Liberal Arts Education is to learn how to educate one’s self, ’til death or senility do we part.)  I had heard tale of this this new scribbler, this inscrutable hotshot Dave Wallace, and felt I ought to size him up as only I, college graduate, could.  So I read The Girl With Curious Hair and started in on INFJ.  Didn’t get far.  At all.  I had cash-in-hand waitering jobs to attend to.  (English Major career opportunities and all that.)

A few years later, the urge hit me again.  This time, I needed to get a few new intellectual bragging rights to wave around.  Rock ‘n Roll was good kicks, but my new venue for social performance was lousy with grad students.  I figured that tackling the Gen X version of Ulysses would do the trick the next time someone asked, “Read anything good lately?”  Unfortunately, the answer “I’ve read INFJ” is just as satisfying at a cocktail party as “I’m reading INFJ.”  And since nobody else had finished it either, there weren’t many questions relating to the captivating climax and the delicious denouement.  There was no need to complete the quest, as long as it loitered on the back of the john with a bookmark stuck firmly in place.

But this year he came up a lot.  New people that I’d met in new circles found him worth reading, indeed, worth finishing.  He seemed to have something to say.  So I licked a finger and held it to the wind, catching more and more interviews, essays, addresses, and other bandanna-brained dives into the icky depths of modern  life.  In death, his once-shelved specter loomed large.  I started to love the guy, the man, DFW.

Motivational rudder righted, compass reset, and course corrected, I set sail once again.

This post has been clogging up the blog for the last week.  I just can’t seem to get it right, and now I know why.

I like to write about things that I like.  I try to stay positive, to be a thumbs-up, glass-is-half-full fella.  But even when trying my best to stick to the bright side of life, I find it’s all too easy to slip into cynicism and find fault.  Just a few snarky remarks can undercut the upbeat and chase the joy away from a sunshiny day.  And as the adage goes, it only takes one bad apple to poison the punch.

So here’s the problem:  I just don’t like this record!  I love Matisyahu, but something was off.  So yesterday, to double-check my lens, cleanse the palate, and tighten up the eardrums, I listened back to my (and, I’m guessing, your) introduction to the man:  Live At Stubb’s.  What a disc!  I was lucky enough to catch the Stubb’s-era band shortly thereafter.  They took the stage and put on the kind of show that gets you high even if you’re keeping your feet on the ground, chemically speaking.

The band was still a little green, which you can hear on Stubb’s.  For every hot lick and tight break, there’s a meandering noodle-to-nowhere moment.  Babylon By Bus this was not.  But the troubles were forgivable as the guys were still fresh enough to get really, Really, OMG! excited about playing to a few thousand people in a college town a thousand miles from home.  They weren’t deer-in-the-headlights self-star struck, but there was this sense of collective joy that the dream was coming true and we were all in this together.

And the frontman had a burning fire in the belly.  Far past rolling in the shtick, his earnest recounting of his people’s past and his Let’s-Go-Build-Us-A-Temple! enthusiasm for the future made you forget that there was anything strange about the scene.  But, alas, that was then.

The critical response to this new album has been strangely kind.   Not that it’s been fawning; it’s been split 50/50.   What surprises me is that the critiques of the actual music have been fair to positive, pointing out the Sly & Robbie collaborations and other bits of finely-tuned production.  The scathing remarks have been directed much more at the man, this oddity named Matisyahu.  Sometimes it’s cheap shots at all purveyors of  kidnapped reggae, a broadside condemnation of  the music’s colonization by the fairer-skinned peoples, with curses cast in passing at the likes of Sublime and 311.  (The Clash will always get a true-punk pass on these things.)  Often the ire is focused on the historical inaccuracy of the spectacle.

Although Matisyahu stretches your eclecticism tolerance to new heights, what could be more natural?  A hippie kid rediscovering his Jewish roots would find it hard to miss some sort of cosmic connection to the chant-down-Babylon music of the Jamaican champions of the Ethiopian Zion.  If you’ve got a beef with authenticity, pick a fight with the original Rastafarians for misappropriating 3000 years of glorious tradition (from Moses to Sandy Koufax), not some Phish-following kid who decided to borrow it back.

Not that this is a reggae album, which is the real problem.  “Light” is a mash-up of Hip-Hop hype and Jack Johnson tripe that loses itself in a thousand-layered studio sheen.  But I’m a loyal fan, and I’ll be here for the next one.  Looking up expectantly, channeling my inner Norman Vincent Peale, believing that Matisyahu will rediscover his inner Stubb’s, and that good things are a-gonna come.

Sometimes I’m a little slow to catch on.

Despite having been told by numerous good-eared friends that I should buy this, and despite the fact the I’ve seen them live and know first-hand that they’ve got the stuff to really rip it up, it still took me a year or so to grab my own copy of The End Is Not The End, the latest album by the Columbus-based, and God-fearing, House Of Heroes.

Maybe my reluctance had to do with those last two qualities.  It’s hard to have any critical distance from music released by those within your milieu.   And I’ve always been biased to quick-skip tunes writ for the safely cordoned-off, closed market of the CCM crowd.  Preaching to the choir creates mediocre music like Trekkies breed Tribbles.

Please forgive me, Listening Public, for I have sinned.  I should have tried this disc a long time ago.  It is, as one buddy of mine sez, “all killer and no filler.”  Each Sing-A-Long (indeed, Radio-Ready) chorus is sandwiched in angular, proggy guitar hooks that launch the 3-chords-and-a-hunch Power-Pop template into sonic bliss.

And they’re funny!  My favorite track (at this point)  is “Baby’s A Red” about crushing hard on a lil’ commie cutey.  It splits the difference between The Beach Boy’s Surfer Girl and The Dead Milkmen classic, Punk Rock Girl.  Listen to it for the “Hammer & Sickle” backing vocals alone.  “I’m not ashamed to be your comrade.”  Indeed!

Not that it’s all fun-n-games.   You can’t pretend to be Muse on every bridge and breakdown without taking your craft pretty seriously.  And you can’t sample preacher extraordinaire Rich Nathan pontificating on capital-”g” Grace (as they do on “Voices”) without a dose of divine conviction.

So why now?  House of Heroes is playing Sioux Falls this weekend.  I thought I’d check it out for kicks, but after spinning this record all week, I’m really looking forward to the show.  Though I was once a skeptic, I am now going as a fan.

This summer, I finally made it to a show.

The first time Perry came to my town was with the original Lollapalooza line-up at the idyllic Blossom Music Center.  I was invited by a gal I was kinda dating.  Hindsight being 20/20, I think I wish I had been dating her a little more.  She was cool. Cooler than me.  (Speaking of nothing shocking…)  But my intimidated 16-year-old self stuck his head in the sand and his fingers in his ears when the invitation came.  Jane’s represented a secret world of clove-smoking art students, clad in weird black xl t-shirts emblazoned with letters like PIL and KMFDM and XTC.  I had yet to crack the code, let alone be initiated into the scene.

But I think I’m glad I waited.

That first trip was marred by reports of blasphemy and nudity and a sloppy set cranked out by a band about to blow.  Seems Perry’s a better man these days.  A little Torah never hurt anyone, eh?  He was certainly in high spirits in the ‘burgh this June, bouncing around the stage in his lamé and lycra-infused fashions, peeling off a layer a tune as he proved that 50 ain’t too old to rock and roll.  Did I mention that he’s 50?  Goodness.  Stamina.

I’d witnessed Perry do what Perry does once before with Porno For Pyros a long time back.  But I’d never sat at the feet of my all-time-guitar-hero Dave Navarro (sorry, Edge,) nor had the opportunity to catch a glimpse of the elusive Eric Avery ’til now. I’ve often watched the Three Days documentary DVD which commemorates one of the last big tours featuring Flea on the four-string.  This was a different experience.

Of course, Flea played the parts flawlessly, sliding effortlessly from supple to spank.  Eric didn’t care about that.  He wrote the damn parts in the first place and he was gonna play ‘em any way he wanted.  This meant pounding it out while stomping out a tribal tantric circle dance like an Iroquois warrior preparing for the fight, clad in direct-from-1991 combat boots and cutoffs.  No poofery for this fella.  While bass players are often unjustly remaindered to the periphery of the 8×10 glossy, hiding behind the ego(s) up front, this band never would have happened without Eric giving Perry a platform on which to wail.  He’s the most essential Jane; here’s to détente if not reconciliation.

It was good to finally make it to a show.  It was great to see the band in fine form after all these years.  And it was pleasing to look around at the beer-sipping crowd of 30/40-Somethings politely comparing notes while respecting each other’s space to enjoy a civilized conert.

We all got older, but Jane’s stayed the same.

A few weeks ago, Bob Dylan got himself rounded up by the New Jersey police as a suspected up-to-no good, itinerant, vagrant-type individual.  Described by concerned residents as looking “scruffy” and “eccentric,”  the officers had no choice but to respond to the call that a man was wandering around the neighborhood, alone.

Once apprehended, Dylan was found to be entirely without ID, proving to be a problem as the 20-something gendarmes drew a blank when the culprit claimed to be a Mr. Bob Dylan.  Now under scrutiny as a hypothetical celebrity, the fuzz drove the bemused Bob back to the stadium where the marquee claimed that there was indeed a Mr. Dylan playing in town with the also unknown duo Willie Nelson & John “Ze Coug” Mellencamp.

Everything worked out in the end as there were in fact several staff and crew members available who could vouch for both the existence of such a musician/public figure, and his resemblance to the man in the back of the black ‘n white cruiser.

What can we learn from this escapade?  What lessons can we take from this frightful foray to the dark side of the law?  Namely that Simon & Garfunkel were on to something 40 years ago:

Interesting live bootleg, eh?  Lots more words ‘n references than the album version, enough to give both REM and Billy Joel a run for their money.