Welcome to the Show, Now Shut the F*ck Up

I took the title from that obnoxious tee shirt we’ve all seen, “Welcome to America, Now Speak English”. It’s usually worn by young men whose grandmothers have been here since 1950 and  still don’t speak it.

I’ll put it to better use.

Welcome to the....”Guy Sitting Next to You” Show:

Perhaps you’ve had this experience, too. You pay a small fortune for tickets to a concert and go, only to find you’re sitting near someone who talks constantly throughout the entire show.

He’s a first cousin to the guy who takes phone calls during a play. The person who ignores the call, and turns off their phone is to be forgiven. The one who actually answers the call should be summarily executed.  And, no, I DON’T care that he was passing on the antidote to prevent a zombie apocalypse. He should have taken care of that before he left the house.

Clearly, I’m on the far end of the tolerance spectrum. I get annoyed, for instance, watching youtube videos of concerts recorded on a smartphone, where the performance is competing with conversations taking place near the phone. The further away the phone is from the stage, the more understandable the background noise.  I once saw a video taken not twenty feet from Robyn Hitchcock, with a  the sound of an avid conversation at least as loud as the song. I half expected Robyn to climb down and kick their asses. The English don’t seem to do that, unless it’s Motorhead. A shame.

It happened more recently at a couple of shows I attended.  And I fear we’re talking epidemic proportions people.  

Mrs. Jaybee and I caught the (musical, not apocalyptical) Zombies at Central Park over the Father’s Day weekend. There were other old folks like us there, and one poor schmuck made the mistake of dragging his teenage daughters to the show. In appreciation, they chatted through the opening act, but saved their most intense conversation topics for the headliners. Me and the Mrs.decided to leave those seats to brave the standing only area, but not before muttering insults and curses.

It happened again at a tribute to Big Star’s “Third” album, where two men were more into getting to know each other than the music they purportedly loved and came to hear. Get a room, I said, preferably a sound proof one. They eventually complied after ruining a couple more songs.

I had begun to feel self-conscious about my apparent obsession with, ahem, ACTUALLY HEARING THE MUSIC, when I was thanked by someone. I guess I could have said “you’re welcome” instead of “hey you wanna keep it down?”  But I think he understood.

Like zombies, though, their numbers grew.. So again, I found myself (no wife this time) leaving the cheap seats, where this kind of thing is rampant, to the standing-only area. But even there, I found two guys talking during the concert highlight. ‘So, let me get this straight,’ I pretended to ask them. ‘You go to the trouble of coming to a show, and stand for hours only to have a conversation during the best part?’ Who ARE these people?

I understand that these concerts are also social events. The performers interact with the audience and audience members interact with each other. And that this is a good thing.  (No, the more I think about it, the less I think it’s a good thing. Human interaction is so overrated!) Couples should be able to exchange endearments, and friends should exchange pleasantries. Hell, I even want to sing. And someone else should be able to write a blog post telling me to shut up.

The overly obvious point-that-shouldn’t-require-a-blog-post-but-since-humans-are-assholes-it- clearly-does, is that I’m there for the music, not you.

I realize that this differs somewhat from the view of a lot of people.  Their main purpose in attending a show is to...be able to say that they attended the show.  The show itself holds little interest for them.  These people are event collectors, and I hate them more than Anakin Skywalker hates the Sand People.

I’ll admit I may err on the side of anti-sociability.

Just One Look:

My kids tell me I have “a look”. One that has probably scarred them during childhood, when it rightfully should have been directed at the outside world, where it could have done some good. So I tried it out, and sure enough it did!

We recently attended a Jerry Seinfeld show, with Colin Quinn opening. The young couple directly behind me apparently felt that Mr. Quinn had nothing to contribute to the evening, and happily continued to chat when he came on. I turned around and shot them the look. Damn if they didn’t stop talking in mid sentence.  Mid word, actually

Which in retrospect is a shame, because I suspect that Mr. Quinn is quite capable of addressing this situation himself. That would have been fun to see, but it was good to know I possessed this super-power.

I also tried it on an otherwise nice couple at the Big Star show and it had a similar effect.  Proximity seems to help since people sitting further away, don’t seem to notice it.  It becomes a garden variety old man glare that is ignorable.  Up close, though, it’s devastating.

Even at a recent Belle and Sebastian show in Prospect Park, a young couple stood behind me, chatting amiably in another language. I glared at them several times, not using my full power, which could have killed them.  A good thing, too, because, they then asked me who the artist was, and I realized they were experiencing that most rare happy accident - stumbling upon a new band they immediately liked. How could I stay mad? So once I extracted a promise that they never again speak at a show, and an invitation to their wedding,  I told them who it was. May they have many intimate conversations very far from concert venues!

Go Forth and Shut Up!:

Such circumstances are rare. So, if you’re heading for a show, go to dinner first and exhaust all your conversation topics beforehand. If you’re like me, it should take about five minutes. Then come to the show feeling completely drained and mute, stay that way for two or three hours, and then on the way home, talk all you want about how great the show was.  And be proud, because you helped make it that way. At least for me you did.

The (non musical) Zombie Apocalypse can wait for the end of the show.

Resolution Destitution

Still in the record store, even after a daydream about 1978, and having gone out on a limb with the Fall, I hedged my bets with something that was certified Nutboy-Approved.

Alien Lanes by Guided By Voices, which Nutboy likes more than Bee Thousand (thought by many to be their best). 

For a while, I wasn't hearing it, but Nutboy has this weird way of being right just when I’m tempted to start feeling superior.

Bee Thousand itself is sort of a pseudo “great album” - the radically lo-fi sound, the sloppy execution, the great songs - and at first Alien Lanes sounds like a photocopy of it. (I was even playing “match the song to it’s counterpart on BT.) So it’s great twice removed. Except it doesn’t have any tunes as memorable as “Tractor Rape Chain”, “Queen of Cans and Jars” or “Mincer Ray”. Even so, I could see how someone would like it if they heard it first, but not otherwise.

But now, two months later, I’m warming up to it. The more I listen, the less it sounds like its predecessor.  And there’s something to be said for a record with 28(!) songs (in 41 minutes!), very few of which are duds.  There are still the annoying parts - like the snoring that is a prominent part of “Ex-Supermodel” - but it wouldn’t be GBV without that. And while I could complain that, in theory, such short songs can cut off the momentum just as it would normally get going, in practice, it turns out that the songs finish just about when you’d want them to.

So, all in all, not great, not pseudo great. Just pretty damned good.  B+

"Little Whirl"

2013 So Far:

1. Japandroids

2. Tame Impala

3. Sugar

4. Guided by Voices

5. Iron & Wine

6. Phil Ochs

Secret History: 1978

Although 1977 is more important for music, 1978 is more important for me (although I had to get 1977 out of my system first), because this was when I began to notice.

It all started with Talking Heads More Songs About Buildings and Food. Not the first punk album ever. Just my first. When I first heard the spare “Take Me to the River” (Stupid me, not knowing much about Al Green, I thought they wrote it) on the radio, it was such a relief from all the overproduced crud clogging up the airwaves at the time. And I thought the name was kind of cool, too.

My first listen consisted of me holding onto four little islands of brilliance - “Thank You For Sending Me An Angel” (one of the all time great album openers), “Good Thing”, “Take Me” and “The Big Country” - amid a sea of weirdness. “Found a Job” was the strangest of all, sitting there at the end of side one as if to say well what did you think of that? and You ain’t seen nothing yet! .  

On each new listen another gem would reveal itself. It took about a week for it all to kick in.. By then, “Found a Job” had gotten into my DNA..

More Songs... was the only one of these records I’d actually get that year.  The rest would have to come later.  I guess I needed a rest.

Remember when Elvis Costello was so angry? This Year's Model captures it perfectly. His shortest, bitterest and maybe best album.

“You Belong to Me”

Parallel Lines by Blondie is THE pop album of the era.  

“Pretty Baby”

The Vibrators Pure Mania doesn’t hold up as well as some other records, but it’s got a lot of vroom still in it.

“Into the Future”

The Ramones Road to Ruin is the perfect balance of the Ramones punk style and tuneful accessibility.

“You Don’t Come Close”

Give Em Enough Rope is no one's favorite Clash album, but that doesn't make it bad, does it?

"Last Gang in Town"

Neil Young - Comes A Time

Hands down the most beautiful Neil Young album (Harvest? Please!), coming out at a point when people weren’t sure he was up to it anymore.  Well, the first time they thought that.

“Already One”

Looking at my list, I don’t see anything very surprising or original. So maybe it’s not much of a secret history, is it?  These are the obvious new wave albums for the time.  What worries me is what I’m forgetting from the non punk side of the road.  

But by then, I’d made a decisive turn and, unlike Neil Young, for me there was no going back.

Well, for a while anyway."

Resolution Disillusion, or Jaybee Makes a New Friend

When we last left off I was returning, along with a couple of other albums, a 2-CD Roy Harper retrospective to the record store bin. At $16.99 it was a bit much to spend for a lot of music by a folkie I’d heard of but never actually heard.

So, what was I actually going to buy, after having spend a good hour in the store?

50,000 Fall Fans Can’t Be Wrong:

How about 2-CD retrospective of a punk band I’d heard of but never actually heard?  Why, you ask? Because it was a whole buck cheaper than Roy Harper. That’s why!

At my advanced age, I’ve learned the value of time, and can ruthlessly limit the amount of it I spend with negative people. Misanthropes, on the other hand, can be tremendously entertaining. At least if they’re accompanied by a guitarist and drummer who are game.

And it helps if you’re a funny misanthrope. Check out the hilarious cover, which rips off the famous Elvis one. And Mark E. Smith does Phil Ochs one better by eschewing the gold suit and, well, looking like Mark E. Smith.

If there’s a way to be annoying while delivering a song, Mark E Smith will find it. I typically have no patience for such tactics, so why am I enjoying this record so much?  Maybe because he’s so committed to being annoying.  There’s the weird vocal tic he stumbles upon midway through “New Face in Hell”. You can almost hear him thinking oh my god that’s annoying, let me do that for the rest of the song. And how he sings like he’s got a head cold (what, you couldn’t have used a tissue before the take?) on “The Man Whose Head Expanded”. And I use the term “sings” lightly. He’s more of a declaimer/disdainer/crazy person on the subway.

If this greatest hits collection is to be believed, the Fall started out at the very beginning of the punk movement, but never quite sound like it. No loud fast guitar chord-based songs.  Varying their attack throughout, no two songs sounding alike. Each one having its own unique riff, beat or arrangement. It’s main link with punk would be Smith’s unremitting disdain for … well pretty much everything.  But it never quite gets tiresome.

And unlike a lot of punk bands that burst like supernovae and then disappeared, the Fall keeps making music to this day. Thus making it impossible for dilettantes like myself to ever really “get into them” as the hippies used to say. They’ve put out dozens of albums, and this collection just scratches the surface.

I doubt I’d ever want to hang out with Mark E. Smith. Before the first beer was done, he’d tell me exactly what he thought of me. And he doesn’t seem to like a whole lot. So if ever I saw him walking down the street in that ugly sweater, I’d hide in the alley.

But thanks to a canny use of ever changing musicians who articulate and elaborate on his vision so well, listening to his music is a blast. A-

"Mr. Pharmacist"

Resolution Dissolution

I’d made a New Year’s resolution to only get mp3s this year. I wanted to save room, mostly. I hate having a lot of stuff around. Yes, even CDs. It reminds me that I’m a member - in very good standing - of our consumer culture.

Well I made it to April 19 anyway. Not bad for me. And certainly better than those other two resolutions pertaining to alcohol and desserts. In a way, you could say I gave up CDs for Lent.

It was International (Intergalactic?) Record Store Day and I would have felt disloyal not supporting at least one. I’d certainly done enough to support that struggling mom and pop site, amazon.com.

And it’s just as well, because I’d been dying to get new music, and for all my research resulting in a list of over 5,000 potential albums to buy, I couldn’t find a single one I could get enthusiastic about.

But it’s funny how your thinking changes when all you can do is browse. No allmusic or metacritic at your fingertips. Just CDs and your instincts.

Oh, and vinyl. I’d tell you about it but just makes me feel old and sad. Okay, if you insist:

It was hard enough back in 1989, making the transition from vinyl to CD. Now I have to consider making the transition back again to vinyl. This is how one comes to hate young people. Can’t we all just get old? Okay, not a great idea.

So there I was on a line outside Other Music. (Yes, there was a line! And I was on that line! I was one of the in-crowd! By far the oldest, but there nonetheless.) There was a nice young man (I find myself saying shit like this more and more now) at the front of the line, letting people in a few at a time, to make sure it didn’t get too crowded! I told him about my soon to be broken resolution, and he said something I knew to be true but that I needed to hear:

“Aw, come on! Mp3s are no fun!”

Anyhow, there I was looking and looking - picking up all sorts of things but not feeling love for any of them and putting them down again. It was the usual winnowing process which now includes the possibility that I could do better price-wise on line.  

At one point I was holding the following:

• Essential Blue Oyster Cult, which I put down because, despite what I’d heard about them, I really only like “Reaper”. And smart guys like me are only supposed to like them ironically, something I can only do so much of.
• Mama’s Gun by Erykah Badu, who was really good in “Block Party”, but I wasn’t in the mood for a trip outside my ever contracting comfort zone. It was springtime afterall. Time for some happy, peppy bright chimey guitar pop stuff to melt those icicles
• A Roy Harper retrospective. Although it never stopped me before, jumping in head first into a 2-CD-set- by-a-folkie-I’d-not-heard-anything-by-before is never a good idea.  
• The Knife - Silent Shout. New, cool, and I wanted it, but at 2 CDs, I knew I could do better pricewise, etc.

So I put them all back.  (A shocked silence follows.)

So what did I end up with?  What? You don’t care? Okay,  now I’m going to make you wait until next time.

Jaybee Finds Sarcasm Just Where You’d Expect It: Blonde On Blonde

Bob Dylan: Blonde on Blonde

Okay, I already had it on vinyl, but the $2.99 price got me. Hey, I can’t complain. The blues numbers still rock hard. And although his growing contempt for his audience is evidenced in his exaggerated singing and annoying harmonica playing, the songwriting is almost as good as on Highway 61. Probably the first rock-era double album, and like most to follow, it could have been an incredible single. But, as I’m now told, size does matter, so despite these flaws, still one of the all time best. A

"Absolutely Sweet Marie"

Jaybee Finds Love (Handles): Japandroid's Celebration Rock

Voice of Narrator: When last we left off, Jaybee was looking for love in all the wrong mp3 files. Will he ever find what he is looking for?

Without giving too much away, it just goes to show you have to keep at it. No matter how tough it seems, sitting there at your computer, with your pizza and beer. You just have to download yourself yet another mp3 file! It beats getting up off your ass. Hey honey, could ya pass me a another slice with pepperoni?

You: Oh my god, Jaybee! How long was your struggle?

Oh yeah. About five minutes actually. The very next record I tried, as a matter of fact. Sorry. I forgot to mention it. It slipped my mind like that beer slipped from my olive oil soaked fingers.

Japandroids: Celebration Rock:

Well named. Literally explosive, beginning and ending with the sound of fireworks. In between there are only eight songs, but each one is filled with loud guitars and frantic drumming. But no bass that I can see or hear.

.  

And two chords. The same two chords, it seems, for every song. And yet they get away with it, and more. There is s joy here that I’d not heard in any of the prior records from this year.

And there’s really not much more to say about it, because they bring the passion. A

"Adrenaline Nightshift"

2013 So Far:

1. Japandroids

2. Tame Impala

3. Sugar

4. Iron & Wine

5. Phil Ochs