Heroes and GOATS, Part 2: More Words About Buildings and Food (On Fire)

Disclaimer:

When we last left off, I was disingenuously pontificating (really, is there any other way to do it?) about heroes, heroism, and sandwiches, roughly in that order. 

And it only gets worse from here. But before it does, let me first provide you with a mini reward for your patience so far. Enjoy. (And even here, they can't avoid compiling a GOAT goat list.)

Anyway, the whole thing came about when I tried to shoehorn together two unrelated thoughts via a bad pun. Sadly, it's not the most desperate thing I've done.

Well, in for a penny, in for another penny, I say. So let's now look at the other side of the coin.

GOATS:

It's past time that I brought up the whole Greatest Of All Time concept, at least as it applies to albums. 

And - as usual - the internet is taking a questionable-to-begin-with concept and making it even worse.  Sound familiar? 

I'll limit my annoyance to Twitter for now and just say that whether it's a pathetic bachelor in his pajamas/ mom's basement/fifties, or a soul-less marketing bot, both seem intent on pushing fairly lame records as GOATs, or at least underappreciated masterpieces.

Narrator's voice: But man has been thrusting his musical preferences upon his fellow man from time immemorial, and in this first scenario (let's call it "Scenario 1") Jaybee plays the protagonist/victim:

It was early in 1987 and I was minding my business at work when this otherwise nice guy (we'd bonded over the '86 Mets) marched up to me, raving about this great song I just had to hear. (Pro Tip: If anyone ever approaches you wielding that phrase, do yourself a huge favor and fake a heart attack, because you can be pretty sure you don't have to hear it.) He'd come armed with a loaded cassette player and headphones, cornered me by my desk, and insisted I listen. To this, it turned out.

Not quite 30 years old, I was into what we'd now call alternative rock. You know, jangly guitars, Michael Stipe mumbling, that sort of thing, etc. This song was slow and stately. The quivering-with-emotion vocal demonstrated excellent enunciation (something I always look for in a song). The basic melody was okay, if a bit exhausting with all the jumping from one octave to another higher one. Music as mountain climbing. Overall, the song was insisting upon itself, while my taste ran to music that was, if anything, ashamed of itself.

The Red Lady just wasn't doing it for me.  I'm not saying it's a bad song. It just wasn't my jam, as the young people say. Perhaps you might like it. Maybe even love it. It might even be on your GOAT list. It just isn't on mine.

But there was my friend, staring at me, stunned by my meh reaction. He slinked away with his cassette player between his legs, shaking his head, wondering how this could possibly be, while I called out behind him "Hey, it's not you, it's me!"

Narrator's Voice: In this second scenario (which we will call "Scenario 2") Jaybee, having not really learned anything the first time around, is now the perpetrator:

It was the late 1990s, or so. I was in the backyard prepping the barbeque for my in-laws who were visiting. As usual, I had music on, and this time it was the then recently re-released, expanded CD version of what I consider the greatest album of all time: The Who Sell Out. 

My niece Sara, then in her late teens, came out to the backyard to bring me barbecue sauce or a fire extinguisher, I forget which. Serendipitously, at that very moment, "Relax" - possibly the most sublime song on the album - was playing. What a moment! The best song on the best album is playing, and since music is universal we were about to experience a major musical bonding across the generations, right?

Well, I peered at her through the smoke to focus on her reaction to the song. Nothing. Maybe a wave to the fireman, but that was it. That is, until later, when, while drying off, I overheard her giving her statement "... my uncle was listening to some corny-ass music when he caught on fire".

Now, after spending these many years telling you about the music I love, I realize I'm just another guy armed with a cassette player, or in my case, a pack of hot dogs. And that your listening to my all time favorite album might only leave you perplexed / mystified. Here. Try it right now.

See what I mean? (Of course, I'm assuming you're not jumping around your house in/on ecstasy.)

Why meh? Music's universal, right? Well, I hate to tell you this, but no.

Let me repeat that: MUSIC IS NOT UNIVERSAL.

I know. You're thinking Wait just one second Jaybee! As brilliant as you are, you may have finally gone off the rails here. OF COURSE, Music Is Universal.

To which I say, no, music is barely local.

Let's take food as an example. Food is universal, right? We all have to eat, don't we? And we have figured out how to make it an enjoyable experience. But that doesn't mean we're all going to enjoy all of the same things (with the obvious exception of certain hot Italian sandwiches). 

Do we all like Indian and Japanese and Thai and Mexican and Spanish, etc.? Probably not. We each have our favorite types of food, but even within those types, there are some dishes we don't care for. 

So while the enjoyment of music is something that's universal. There are very few musical moments that are universal. Some songs. Maybe some albums? Bands? The only one I can think of is Sly and the Family Stone, circa 1969. And since then, we've let ourselves be split up into our different little market segments anyway, so that one barely counts. There are even Beatle-haters.

Outside of one's teens years - when our tastes are still forming - it's quite rare to hear something that profoundly changes your musical preferences. No matter how good a song may be, if it's outside our comfort zone, we're more likely to hear just the most basic formal elements (instrumentation, singing style, beat, etc.) of the genre rather than the specifics of that piece of music - and just enough of those for us to fit it into the stereotype we already have of that genre. At which point, we say "it all sounds the same". Of course it does, dummy!

My niece heard a band from the sixties singing a very sixties melody with very sixties chord changes, etc. Why would she like it? Back then she was listening to her version of the sixties, which, in her mind, is better than mine. And she is correct.

So you might ask Jaybee,what would it take for me to expand my horizons and become wise like you?

As I once told Pink Floyd before they were famous, "It takes Time."

The Third Annual Jaybee-bies, or It Wasn’t You, 2013, It Was Me:

Mrs. Jaybee hated 2013. 

I just found it kind of annoying. Nothing really awful happened, but I did have to leave a job I liked because my employer was going under. It eventually worked out okay, but managed to cast a pall over everything. So it wasn’t a bad year, but it sure did seem to be messing with us a lot.

I was a bit fatigued by music this year. And TV and books and movies. As usual, there was plenty of good, but not quite enough great, music. My fault. I was bummed with  the job change hanging over me, so I wasn’t fit for fun, and my choices weren’t quite on the mark.

When I would look at the many, many possibilities out there I’d get a bad feeling that I'd be underwhelmed.  xgau was partly absent and I missed his keen eye for separating hype from quality. Admittedly, it's occasionally too keen, and has kept me from getting to some great albums, but overall he’s saved me lots of time.

And speaking of time, how did I do with my 2013 resolutions? Well, I was no better to 2013 than 2013 was to me.

2013 Resolutions:

1. No CDs:

I got 14, if you count double CD sets as two, and 12 mp3s. So I’ve got a ways to go.  B-

2. Get at least 3 albums released in 2013:

I failed utterly. My amazon Wish Lists are overflowing with records that seemed interesting but that I could think of an excuse not to buy. It was a mental version of what I used to do in the record store.

So I had to get something. And if my math is right, the “average year” of the music I did buy was 1987, with the 1970s being the decade most represented. I sort of made up for it by burning down some itunes and amazon gift cards - I’ve already got five records this year - three from 2013! But that’s too little, too late. F

3. Get Less Music:  It may seem counter-intuitive, but I really do believe that less is more. That the more you have, the less valuable each one is, especially when, like with mp3s, you can’t even touch them. And I did it! Didn’t seem like it! But I did it! A-.

4. More music books! Well I got “Revolution of the Head” anyway. Totally worth it. But that’s all. C+

Which all works out to a C+ average overall.

But enough about what I suck at. This show’s running long already, so it’s time for 

The Jaybee-bie  Awards!

Most Plays (By Other People) That I Could Have Easily Passed On, but That Ended Up Making Me Like The Record More Than I Thought:

High Violet - The National

Thanks to Mrs. Jaybee and Son of Jaybee Michael, who liked it more than I did, and insisted on putting it on constantly, I did end up liking this record.

On the one hand this merely reinforces my delusion that I’m the Arbiter of Good Music (in my house) who brings it to the Masses (in my house anyway (well, technically, it’s still the bank’s house)).

On the other hand, I hate it when other people end up liking my music more than I do.  (Hmmm. Must buy something they’ll hate….)

Most Disconcerting Musical Experience:

Present Tense/Tongue Twister - Shoes

Which forced me to think about whether or not there is such a thing as having too much pop music.

Good News For Modern Man Award:

While none of his three records quite made it to the list, I’m now I’m putting on John Cale’s The Island Years for fun.

OK News For Modern Man Award:

For records that are better than I gave them credit for at the time,:

Pleasures of the Harbor - Phil Ochs (22 plays) - But not that much better.

The Creek Drank the Cradle - Iron and Wine (64 plays!!) which testifies to how easy it is to play this first thing in the morning.

Not So Good News For Modern Man Award:

Kleenex/Liliput (41 plays) and still not fun just yet.

And finally...

Best of the Year - Weasel Version:

Here’s my Top Ten. You may have noticed that I've included, where possible, indicate how many plays these albums got throughout the year. Let’s see if Plays = love.

Tied for first:

I couldn’t decide between:

Seasick - Imperial Teen

It’s Blitz - Yeah Yeah Yeahs (only 4 plays, but that doesn’t count the ipad or the van)

Celebration Rock - Japandroids (12 plays, because it’s just too intense for just any occasion)

Oh, and let's throw in Tame Impala’s Lonerism (40 plays on the desktop alone!) in there as well.  As mistrustful as I've been to the woozy/hazy and even synth-y sounds, (and I could swear I smell a joint being passed around), and on top of all that, the singing that I thought was a gal actually being a guy. When measured against how good it sounded - from beginning to end - on a long drive last month, these guys deserve to be here. They combine the worst tendencies of the sixties and seventies and somehow make it sound great.

Tied for second (okay, fifth):

Alien Lanes - Guided by Voices

Piper at the Gates of Dawn - Pink Floyd

Tallulah - Go Betweens

Superunknown - Soundgarden

Copper Blue - Sugar (23 plays)

The more discerning of you may have noticed (hmmm, the more discerning of you left already, but whatever) is that I don’t have ten records in my top ten. It was that kind of pain in the ass year.

10. So let’s throw in The Very Best of Grin, which technically doesn’t qualify because it’s a best of, but what the hell. It’s a delight from beginning to end. (The Fall comes close, but “delight” isn’t quite the word I’d apply to them.)

Artist of the Year:

Nobody. Unless you count Imperial Teen who’ve made two albums that are amongst this and last year’s best. Yeah, screw you too, 2013!

So How Good a Year Was It?

Some of the annoying things from 2013 have finally settled down. It turned out, in retrospect, to be a good year. This is not the same thing as being a good year while you’re experiencing it, which is more, you know, fun.

Onward:

I’ve already gotten five records this year. And they are, happily, all over the place. Which is how it’s supposed to be.

And Mrs. Jaybee is insisting that 2014 will be a good year.

You got that, 2014?

Jaybee Just Misses Yet Another Great Time

1967 is generally considered the high water mark in rock n roll. (Yeah, I know I already did a post on it. Just bear with me please?.) It was an apex of experimentation and songwriting. Apparently it’s been all downhill since then, even though I had a perfectly good time afterward.  

I was only ten years old in 1967, so my enjoyment came via singles, Sgt Pepper and maybe Monkee’s Headquarters. Albums, along with many of the year’s more...exotic pleasures were beyond me, so I can’t help but think I missed all the real fun. This “just missed the real fun” would become a theme in my life. Upon entering a new job, grade, decade or even room, I was always being told what a great time everyone had last time, and that it just isn’t the same now.

I’ve done a lot of catching up since then, but Pink Floyd somehow got left behind. Probably because we had the 1970s era Floyd to distract us. They hit my radar on early FM radio and weird TV music specials. Since this was before my serious record buying days, they would always seem way too daunting to take on. Plus, I was afraid that if mom or dad heard them, they would (correctly) conclude that pot was the inevitable next step. I’d’ve gotten in trouble for it without even having gotten to smoke any.

But in 1973 they broke big, with Dark Side blah blah blah, so you and I and even your mom got to know them. And for the rest of the decade they were actually pretty hard to ignore. So I cared less and less. I found The Wall to be kind of annoying, actually. Not as much as John Lydon, who would wear a Floyd t-shirt with the words “I Hate...” painted on it.

They can now be heard as mainstays on classic rock stations. Where the contents of maybe three albums are still in pretty heavy rotation.

All this kept me away for some time. It was only after having gotten - and loved - the Zombie’s Odyssey and Oracle and the Small Faces Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake - did I venture to dig deeper into flower power era English rock again. So why not check out a record that is now remembered as one of Floyd's best, one featuring the Crazy Diamond Syd Barrett himself?

Pink Floyd  Piper at the Gates of Dawn

As is always the case with records of that era, I was less than impressed the first time around, mostly because of all the drug induced whimsy. However, I eventually noticed that Syd was not bad when it came to writing actual tunes, even when the lyrics were a bit off off the rails. I also noticed that the ten minute “Interstellar Overdrive” isn’t content to be merely spacey like so many excursions of that era. There is some pretty aggressive guitar playing on it, too.

And when it comes to the songs, Old Syd turns out to be a bit more down to earth (believe it or not) than the other guys anyway.  Otherwise, why are the songs so catchy?

Oh, it’s all kind of hazy like Tame Impala was/is. Plus it’s got a thin crust of 60s-psychedelic cliches on it. But it’s so light and fluffy!

As usual, it took awhile for it to finally hit me. (Mrs. Jaybee was humming it way before me.) And I’m not totally sure I’ll be humming it all six months from now, so I’m going to hold off an unqualified endorsement for now. B+

But between you and me, if anyone brings up Pink Floyd to me again, citing Dark Side or anything after, I’m just going to have to tell them that Piper was their peak, and after Syd left, they were just never the same again.