Ouch. That’s Hot.

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.

I know it’s been way too long since I’ve hit the right balance of inspired and untired to do a little writing, but the last issue of Spin has convinced me it’s nigh time to pop the cork on another bottle of blog.

So it’s back to my roots; back to the guys that most recently lit my muse.  Columbus, OH may not be an Athens or an Austin or a Seattle, but this college town has got more than its share of real deal rock ‘n roll, as evidenced by the August ‘09 issue of Spin which declared that it’s pages contained “100 of the Greatest Bands You’ve (Probably) Never Heard.”

The headline was right on the money.  Yes, 96% of these guys I’ve never heard.  But the other 4% were some of the greatest.

I know because 4 of the top 100  hailed from what  was once known as Cowtown, the now magnificent megalopolis of Columbus.  That’s 4% of Spin’s Top 100 Worldwide.  That’s saying something for a snatch of real estate which sure as hail ain’t New York or LA or Chicago or even Hotlanta.

Granted, all of these guys peaked before I earned the right to plug in my Fender Twin, but it’s this scene that gave me the dream to keep it going on and on and on.  (Not Stopping Believing, as it were.)

So, for the record, they are:

Gaunt

Great Plains

Royal Crescent Mob

Scrawl

I’m a little bummed that I can’t find a decent picture online of any of these guys rocking out in obviously Central Ohio sort of way.  Sure, there’s a million pictures of bands bashing away at Bernie’s, but they all post-date the digital revolution (iPhones n’at.)  I’m sure that somebody out there has got a stash and a scanner.  Get to work!  Because of this, I’m using the above picture of some guy wearing a Gaunt t-shirt.  It’s the best that I can do.

Just to round out the Buckeye Beat, I must also mention that the hard workin’ Michael Stanley Band made Spin’s list of “Essential Heartland Rock” at slot number six with his EMI-released and spot-on titled, “Heartland”.  Trust me, he was a big deal if you grew up on bunny-ear-only Cleveland TV.  Kind of a local King Of All Media.  The kind of guy who only had to play one show at year, at the biggest shed in town, and it always sold out.

Still not convinced?  To let the proving begin, here he is with a song I know you know, the glorious romp “He Can’t Love You.”  Enjoy:

The Clash have always been ready and willing (and with impeccable taste) to borrow a tune, digging deep into the roots of reggae for such gems as Police & Thieves, Armagideon Time, and Pressure Drop; and a little old-fashioned American rock ‘n roll like Brand New Cadillac and I Fought The Law.

However, the fact that they covered one Eddy Grant, formerly of The Equals and most famously of Electric Ave., came as a surprise. Here’s the original:

And here’s The Clash:

Recently, The Economist ran this article about a new law to rid the land of Nebuchadnezzar from the the dangers of secondhand puffing by introducing legislation to nix lighting up within the four walls of all public institutions.

How’d it work for them?  Here’s a sampling of the hyperbolic reaction greeting the new measure:

“My cousin was recently murdered by terrorists, my neighbour was tortured by the police, my electricity is cut for most of the day, the same is true in most hospitals in the city. And they are worried about smoking?”

“Bring back Saddam. We were free to smoke anywhere then.”

“Prisons are public buildings, right? So will they now prevent guards from stubbing out cigarettes on the arms, legs and backs of inmates?”

Wowzers.  That all being said, the key fact behind the bill is that smoking is responsible for 55 Babylonian deaths a day, as opposed to 10 for insurgent-related shootings and bombings.   A 10-death-daily toll is still way too high for my little green-lawned and shrubberied suburban mind to comprehend, but it’s still a lot safer to face the jihad than to make a habit of sparking up a Camel.   Of course, that just doesn’t feel right, now does it?

This gap between feeling and thinking illustrates a greater principle:  People are pretty bad at setting priorities.

Ever since reading the book Innumeracy, I’ve been fascinated by the odds underlying life as we know it.  In his book, author John Allen Paulos makes the case that the average person can’t apply basic math to everyday decisions.  This results in much idiocy and hullabaloo.

Freakonomics mined much of the same turf when it famously pointed out that swimming pools are much more lethal than pistols, yet we joyfully take the kids swimming and fear them finding a gun.  And we can listen to Dave Ramsey run the figures all day and then go out and still slowly swipe ourselves into debt and depression.

I’m as guilty as anybody when it comes to ignoring the numbers.  Not in my head, mind you, but somewhere in that emotional part of the back of the brain where opinions are formed and next steps are felt-through rather than thought-out.  But I’m not alone.  There’s a growing field of study known as Behavioral Economics that’s been endeavoring to figure it all out.  A guy named Barack Obama channeled it to great success last year with a little campaign called “Hope & Change”, so it might be on to something.

Another resource I’d highly recommend is the BBC documentary The Century Of The Self which describes the revolution on Madison Avenue a few generations back, when Freud’s Id was tapped to sell us what we want instead of what we need.

Spock we are not.  That’s not a bad thing, but a little self-awareness might do us some good while we attempt to “live long and prosper.”

It’s happened before.

Last time, the tears filled my eyes and spilled over the broken shards of all my shattered dreams as they lay splintered on the hard-tiled floor of my new hard-won, respectable existence.   I’m a little better off these days.  This time it was just a shrug and trip to the hardware store for a tube of Titebond.

Last time, I had a pro patch-up by the formidably talented Mike Cox (if you’re in c-bus, look him up.)  This time, I knew the scars were to be permanent and unavoidable.  Time to embrace the beat-down/beatific patina of warts-and-all life and DIY.

As long as I can keep on pickin’, it’ll be alright.

For $30, this trick isn’t the cheapest one in the book, but it’s already done the job of snagging some attention for one of the hardest working bands in rock ‘n roll.

While many industry insiders get their new releases in oddball packaging to keep ‘em off the ‘net for a little bit longer, the band explains that at this point in their career, “We’re kind of more worried about being ignored than being ripped off.”

I admit that I haven’t heard the album, but I’m curious:  How would this sound, on a nice vintage hi-fi in a faux-oak paneled basement, as compared to the mp3 version on the computer in front of you?

I’d rather surrender myself to the shag-carpeted comfort of the former.

A few weeks back I was setting up some microphones for one of my Not-So-Pro (TM) recording sessions and thought I’d test out some settings and make sure that the cords and the cables were humming along and making the right connections in the right directions and otherwise gettin’ the electronics all ready and warmed up to jump and jive and hoot and holler before the real musician arrived.

Thought I’d test it by doing a little bit of recording of my own.  For old time’s sake it seemed like a good moment to revisit a two-chord creation of Chicago’s one and only Blue Meanies, a second-rate third-wave ska band that still holds a nice little spot in the back side of my heart for playing a part in the old fun times when I used to romp around with Sarah and with Steve and with the suburban punks of dirty downtown Elgin, where the AA meeting hall would play host to dread-headed and tattooed teens who would pogo and skank till the floor boards would creak and crack and the the mic stands would topple and tables would spill the merch on the sweat-wet floor.

And we were there to hear this drummer named Jay, a guy that I used to work with in the summers and who had a place up in St. Charles with his brother.  I went over and I dropped him off and there were girls there, lovely girls in the prime of early lithely adultlife with summer-sunned shoulders and confidence and swagger and smoking cigarettes and they were beautiful and there were books being read and sketches being sketched and there was music being played and I said “uh, hi.”

And then I said “bye” and I drove away and that was about the end of that , but then I went up with Sarah and with Steve to see the band and they were opening for the Blue Meanies and the Blue Meanies were doing everything that they could to get that party started, as it were, and we rejoiced.

And they played a song that was not so much ska but a little more funk and they pressed it on pink vinyl and pink vinyl sounded pretty cool for 3 dollars, so I bought it and brought it to College and J (not Jay) put it on the Vortex (the Vortex being a Salvation Army Store-bought turntable taped up with the guarantee “Work Good”.)  And he dropped the needle on the record and we worked out the chords and gosh we played that thing a lot at all the college student-union and rec-hall and dorm-basement gigs.  Sometimes with flute and sometimes with sax and sometimes with harmonica and sometimes with whoever happened to grab the mic and it’s still stuck in my head all these years later with its vaguely suggestive title which only suggests things to someone who’s like 19 and totally sheltered but really wants to get out because he stood on Jay’s front porch and he saw girls and they were beautiful and he thought “maybe some day.”

Anyway, here’s the song as I recorded it a few weeks back.

I’m pretty sure that this is the album that The Killers hoped to hit when they took a swing at Sam’s Town.  As a fan of most things Killers, I enjoyed Sam’s Town just fine for what it was, but the Gaslight Anthem seems to have found the missing link between the current indie rock of the aughties and the swaggering grandeur that once drove the E-Street’s shuffle.

That link is the moment that the Grammy’s did the unfathomable and for once made Rock ‘n Roll History.   It’s the moment when Bruce told everyone who’s really The Boss when he took the stage with Elvis Costello and Dave Grohl and other Famous Friends to pay a four-minute tribute to Joe Strummer and the Almighty Clash.

The Gaslight Anthem gets this.   Sure, they love that Jersey sound and knowingly reference Mr. Springsteen in the lyrics pinned to their hearts and stapled to their rolled-up working-class sleeves.  But they also sold their soul to rock and roll, paying a toll of lost loves, broken vows, estrangement, and decline in hopes that 3 chords and a little truth might someday take them all a little farther down the line.

Listen to the chop-chop-chop-chop guitars in Film Noir and you’ll see what I mean.

Listening again to an album I’ve been enjoying for the last few seasons of the year, one of the few reliable happy pills in a long dark winter of the South Dakotan soul, some sunshine from Jacksonville reved up through heart-on-the sleeve 80s cheese.

A lot of critics panned this album, including my usually spot-on heroes over at Sound Opinions.  They were bugged by the trying-too-hard awkward adolescence of the thing.  They’ve all got a point.  The album is soaked in the sexy,  but it’s like a 13-year old trying on her older sister’s makeup and fishnets for the first time.    Kinda icky.

Sure, they’ve got a lot of growing up to do, but the innocence and honesty won me over.  As a kid who first ingested these sorts of Cure-pop grooves while sitting alone in his room imagining the kicks he wasn’t getting, I understand the rock ‘n roll fantasies of a bunch of nice young people who met up in Sunday School, hoping for the opportunity to be naughty, but you know, not like too much.