Mutual Admiration Society: Tom Waits and the Ramones

It’s not very often you have musicians cover each other. When it happens, it’s a special kind of mutual admiration. The first exchange I always think of is from two of my favorite artists. Each takes the other’s song and puts his own stamp on it.

Tom Waits recorded “I Don’t Wanna Grow Up” for his Grammy Award winning album Bone Machine. It’s a simplistic song, only featuring two guitars (one electric, one acoustic) and a bass. At the beginning of the song, we get the feeling that the song is told from the perspective of a young child, who understands what the pains of being an adult are all about.

When I see the price that you pay
I don't wanna grow up
I don't ever wanna be that way
I don't wanna grow up

Seems like folks turn into things
That they'd never want
The only thing to live for
Is today...  

However, by the time we get to the end of the song, we find out the narrator has grown up too fast for his liking.

Three years later, the Ramones recorded their final album, Adios Amigos. Their version of “I Don’t Wanna Grow Up” was the opening track. If you didn’t know better, you’d swear that this was a Ramones original song. The guitars were rearranged to make the song more Ramones-esque and the lyrics sounded like something that Joey would have written.

Waits would later return the nod on his 2006 three-disc releases, Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards when he covered “Danny Says”, which was Joey Ramone’s favorite song that he recorded.

Joey had written the love song for his then girlfriend, Linda Danielle. The song tells the tale of having to do just one more show for a tour, one in Idaho, right before the band leaves LA. The band’s road manager, Danny (who is based off of their real manager, Danny Fields) tells him that they have to do an appearance at a record store and a radio interview before their 5:02 sound checks. Joey is looking forward to the end of the tour, and it is clear that he would rather be surfing and being hanging out with his girlfriend.

Hangin’ out in 100B
Watchin’ “Get Smart” on TV
Thinkin’ about you and me and you and me

Then she dumped him and married bandmate Johnny Ramone. That’s cold.

When Waits got a hold of it, he slowed the song down. Instead of the song feeling like an upbeat “can’t wait to be with you tomorrow,” tune, it’s a sad song, almost filled with doubt. I wonder if Waits considered the real life ending when he recorded it, or if was a memorial to both Joey and Johnny.    

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Bring the Vuvuzela to the NFL! Really!

It’s been the talk (or more to the point, the main complaint) of the World Cup. I’m of course talking about the vuvuzela. Who knew that an eight dollar hunk of plastic could tick off so many people?

While it has become the most reviled noise since Yoko Ono started making albums, I have grown to love the vuvuzela. If I owned an iPhone, I would have already purchased the vuvuzela app. Complain if you must, but I think it makes the matches more exciting and it gives the fans a chance to be a part of the game. Plus, I just like the noise.

Allow me to make a modest proposal. Bring the vuvuzela to American Football.

Really.

Why not? If the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim can use the annoying “Thundersticks”, I think we can put up with the sound of bees for 16 weeks a year. However, I’m not suggesting that the horns should be present in all 31 stadiums. There should be only one team to adopt it. I have constructed a rubric that will help find the perfect team.

1. No Indoor Stadiums
This one is a no brainer. In an outdoor stadium, the decibel levels can reach 127 decibels. If you put this in an indoor stadium, the noise would become even more unbearable.

Eliminated: Indy, Houston, Minnesota*, Detroit, New Orleans, Atlanta, Arizona, St. Louis and Seattle

2. No Cold Weather Teams

Honestly, the sound of bees sounds out of place in Buffalo…in December. The vuvuzela is obviously meant to be used in a warmer climate.

Eliminated: The entire AFC North, the Hatriots, both New York teams, Buffalo, Kansas City, Denver, Green Bay, Chicago, Philadelphia and Washington

3. Diverse and Open Population

Let’s face it, the vuvuzela is an international item and should be used in a place that’s not so…oh, what’s the word…WASPy.

Eliminated: Tennessee, Oakland, Carolina and Dallas

4. Known for its Defense

In American Football, when is the crowd the loudest? When the home team is on defense. Since the vuvuzela makes things exciting, it should only be use when there is something about which to get excited. Teams like the 49ers are long associated with the “West Coast Offense”, not its stellar defense.

Eliminated: Jacksonville, San Francisco and Miami

This leaves two teams left; San Diego and Tampa Bay. Both locations fit the above four criteria. However, there can be only one. So to come up with the team I am making my own tie breaker.  

5. It Can’t Be Direct Competition Against My Team

I’m a Colts Fan. I can’t risk another AFC team having home field in the playoffs and using the vuvuzela against my boys in blue.

Eliminated: San Diego

Congratulations, Tampa Bay, you have a new tradition. To the Glazer brothers and general manager Mark Dominik; please buy 75,000 of these and hand them out during the home opener at Raymond James Stadium.

*May be reconsidered when the Vikings relocate to Los Angeles. 

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Michael Jackson – One Year Later

Last year, my brother-in-law was in town for a couple of weeks. He’s only 18 and is still in his fast food phase, so he wanted me to pick up some Burger King for him. While I was standing in line, some creepy guy who hadn’t shaved in about a week and smelled of feet got four inches from my face.

“Did you hear? Michael Jackson died.”

“Um…OK?” What do you do when someone gives you unsolicited news? “Thanks?”

This news didn’t shake me at all. First of all, I didn’t find the source to be all that credible. Plus, I hadn’t really given Michael Jackson much thought in the last several years. “The King of Pop” had been reduced to a punchline because of the allegations of pedophilia (because nothing is more HI-larious than sexually abusing kids) and his “changing colors” (again, saying that African-Americans really want to be white…so funny; especially in neighborhoods that are still segregated). He had been in societal exile for a few years, and persona non grata on the radio. People had distanced themselves from Jackson and his music, because he was “a weirdo”. He was tried and convicted in the court of public opinion with some very shaky evidence.

Growing up, I was not a huge Michael Jackson fan. I loved Thriller when it came out and thought it was one of the best albums of the early ‘80s. However, that’s where I stop. Everything after 1983, in my mind, was forgettable. “Bad” sounded more like a track that was understandably cut from Thriller rather than a brand new song.

I’ve always thought his best song was “Rock With You” from Off The Wall. I’ve always felt that Quincy Jones took way too much credit for Michael becoming a star. He had forgotten that Michael had already proven his musical chops before Jackson hit puberty.

Watching the people who ripped into Jackson (literally the day before his death) mourn his passing and proclaiming him to be a musical genius had to have anger the people who truly stood behind Michael. It took him dying before people started to appreciate him again. It’s kinda sad to think if he had felt that support in the previous 15 years, things might have been different.

I know that there are people who never let the accusations of wrong doing or his death change their opinion of his music. I respect these people immensely, even though I may not share their views. Music is music. People’s obsession with the private lives of celebrities tainted the legacy of a talented musician.  

MJ deserved better than that.
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Romance by Apocalyptica

Until a couple of months ago, I would have never thought of a cello as a heavy metal instrument.

Then my friend Krista posted this video on her Facebook page.

Since then, “Romance” has become the latest Andy Dufresne song in my collection, and it comes from the most unlikely place. Apocalyptica is made up of four classically trained cellists from Finland. The band originally started as a Metallica tribute band…on cello.

I have always said that metal is the closet descendant of classical music and opera. This band proves it.

I’m currently absorbing this song, and the album from which it came, “Cult”. I’ll let you know more about it when I come down.

As with many Andy Dufresne songs, I just don’t have the words, so I won’t try. 

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Father and Son by Cat Stevens

A few weeks ago, I was asked a question I wasn’t expecting.

“So what’s the deal with you and your father?”

I didn’t quite know how to answer that. I also had to realize that the question came from someone who is very much like his father.

My father and I are totally different people. He’s a grease monkey with a great love for the Beach Boys. He got married at 20 and served one tour in Vietnam as a specialist. When he dropped out of college, he had only one more course to complete—a writing class.

Both of his sons went in a different direction. My brother and I finished college in four years, worked on the creative side of media and we took our cars to Jiffy Lube to get the oil changed (although he won’t admit it, it’s a source of great shame). 

My brother and I also made no secret of our desire to flee Evansville. My brother relocated to Kentucky, and then moved to Evansville. He was out of the “Metro” area for only 2 years.

When it came time for me to leave, I’m sure Dad thought that I would be back in the hometown in no time. However, I think that he got the idea that I wasn’t moving back after my first three years in Bloomington. I still talked to him and my mother often. It was funny, that it was always Mom who made the call. When I talked to Dad, the first question would always be, “So, how’s your car running?”

My father came to visit only once while I was living in Bloomington. It was during the “She Who Has No Reflection” era. He and Mom were on the way to Indianapolis for the U.S. Nationals and they stayed for dinner. In six years, he was there for only four hours.

When he and Mom separated and eventually divorced, we talked even less. Since he never initiated conversations when they were together; why would we talk more when the life line was gone? I know that I’m too old to have “daddy issues”, but it would have been nice if he had made the effort.

It took me a while to figure out that it wasn’t personal. He tried to communicate, but he just couldn’t. He didn’t know how. It’s just who he is. I could either be angry about it or accept it.

Our relationship was pretty much like the song “Father and Son” by Cat Stevens. When the son wants to leave and carve out his own path, the father tries to talk him out of it. The son is frustrated, because his father doesn’t seem to be listening.

If they were right
 I'd agree
but it's them
They know not me 
Now there's a way
and I know that I have to go away

There isn’t anger between the two of them, they just talk over each other’s head. No one is wrong, and no one is right. They’re just different.

When I call Dad on Sunday to wish him a Happy Father’s Day, we’ll talk for awhile about our work and our marriages (he has since re-married). We have that in common now.

Then he’ll ask. “So how’s your car running?”

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The Life of Ian – "(What’s so Funny ‘Bout) Peace Love and Understanding" by Elvis Costello and the Attractions

When D and I were getting ready for the wedding last summer, we had a clear division of responsibility. I took care of the music, photography, tuxes and rings. She did the rest. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I got off light. While D was wrestling with the cake lady, the hall, invitations and people who sent specific seating demands, I listened to music.

Doesn’t seem fair, does it?

I was also responsible for the creation of the slide shows. Normally, the song that accompanies grainy baby pictures is some kind of sappy song, such as any random Dashboard Confessional tune. I know that weddings are emotional events, but this is a pictorial of somebody’s life. Does the groom really want "Vindicated" to his theme song?

I, however, went in a different direction. I decided that I wanted a song that not only was upbeat, but was a little more self-descriptive. I chose “(What’s so Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding” by Elvis Costello and the Attractions.

It’s not what I would call a wedding song; it’s not even close. It has a very pessimistic point of view. Why in the name of all that’s good and holy would I want to use that song…to describe my life?

I’m sorry, have we not met?



Not to sound too corny or sappy, but that song pretty much summed up my attitude in the pre-D era. Sure, life kicks everyone every now and then, but I was pretty sick of it. It wasn’t just me, either. I watched my friends, some of the best people on the planet, get treated the same way a baby treats a diaper.

As I walk through
This wicked world
Searchin for light in the darkness of insanity.
I ask myself
Is all hope lost?
Is there only pain and hatred, and misery?

Since the photos (most of them) came from this era, the song made sense. This is who I was at that point. It took meeting someone on the stairs of my apartment to make the change, and make me believe again.

Plus, I just really like the song.

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My open letter to the Big Ten

Dear Big Ten,

Look, I’ve been there, too. Once upon a time, I dated someone with the sole purpose to make another girl jealous. If she saw me with someone else, she’d realize that we were perfect for each other. It took a couple of broken hearts before I realized that this is the same logic a teenager has when he thinks “if I wreck the car, my dad will be forced to buy me a new one.”

We’re both guys, so you can admit it. Come on! I won’t tell anyone. You don’t really want Nebraska, do you? This is really about Notre Dame.

I don’t blame you. You and Notre Dame are perfect for each other. It has a lot of tradition, a chance to build some really intense rivalries, great programs that go beyond football and basketball, and its athletes tend to stay out of jail. For years, it’s been an independent in football and has played other sports with the coastal thugs in the Big East. They deserve better than Syracuse.

Remember, we went through something like this 20 years ago; when Penn State made it the Big 11. They didn’t have more to offer than football and women’s volleyball (which really is all that Nebraska has). Even I have a hard time remembering that they are a Big Ten School. For a second, when I see that IU is playing Penn State, I wonder why the Hoosiers are playing the Nittany Lions so late in the season.

Penn State was a rebound when Notre Dame turned you down. I don’t think that anyone can argue that. You’ve had some good times with Penn State since, but really after January 3, PSU is just a huge weight around your neck.

Now with Nebraska coming to the Big Ten, you have broken up the Big 12. Missouri is on the outside looking in, Colorado is headed to the Pac 10 (yes that great west coast state, Colorado) along with the Texas schools, and there's talk of you raiding the Big East. You have created a logistically impractical Nebraska-Penn State home and home women’s softball series every year (yes, there are other sports apart from football), and you have effectively killed the BCS (OK…maybe that’s not such a bad thing).

All of this, just to get Notre Dame.

The irony is that Notre Dame’s interest may be tempered if the Texas schools join the league. Do they really want to go from being an independent to swimming in a 16 school conference? With all the revenue being shared? I hardly think so.

Suppose you land Notre Dame. You will have used Nebraska and played home-wrecker to a fine (albeit overrated) conference. Would it have been worth it? I love the Fighting Irish too, but is it really worth destroying college sports?  

Look, if you want to be the Uther Pendragon of college football, I guess I can’t stop you. But if you really expect me to accept a Rutgers-Missouri game as a Big Ten match-up, then you have bigger problems than wooing the regents in South Bend.

Best of luck in the courtship of the Irish. Go Hoosiers.

Ian Shane 

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A Companion Unobtrusive: Spirit of Radio by Rush

There’s something about hearing a song for the first time at the right time. It can make you a fan of a band about whom you weren’t sure. It takes the right person and the right moment to open the flood gates.

The person: Turner Watson

The band: Rush

The song: Spirit of Radio

Turner and I went to college together and worked at the college station. Turner, a huge Rush fan, was talking up their latest album (at the time, and boy am I dating myself!), Roll the Bones. I regarded this input the same way all guys react when their buddy is trying to set them up with a girl who has a “really nice personality”. All I knew about Rush was that they were Canadian, sang Tom Sawyer, and Geddy Lee was the vocalist on the Mackenzie Brother’s “hit single” “Take Off”. So I didn’t give Rush a fair shake until I was out of college and working with Turner at WGBF.

As with most of my stories, this one starts off with the line, “So there’s this girl…” She worked in our building, and we were sorta dating. On the night that she told me that she was getting back together with her ex, I instinctively went to the radio station. When I told Turner what happened, he took me outside and gave me a half full two-liter.

“I want you to throw this in defiance of all the girls who have wronged the both of us (even at that time, we both had already accumulated an impressive list). Watching the bottle explode on impact made me feel a little better, but I knew that this childish act of misplaced anger wasn’t the long term solution.

We went back inside and sat in the studio. The next song that was scheduled was “Spirit of Radio”. Turner turned up the music, and it all hit me; the music, the lyrics. I don’t know how it happened, but I instantly found myself being absorbed into the music. That night, I became a Rush fan and I became totally devoted to my chosen field.

Even as I started to explore their catalogue and absorbed more of their music, I still kept going back to Spirit, for many reasons.

Spirit of Radio is the most balanced song in their repertoire. Alex’s guitar riff at the beginning, Neil’s drums, and Geddy’s vocals meshed together in a perfect blend. It’s not a Neil song, or a Geddy song…it’s a Rush song.

But I must confess that the real reason it’s my favorite is that I lived that life.

All this machinery making modern music
Can still be open-hearted.
Not so coldly charted
It's really just a question of your honesty, yeah,
Your honesty.
One likes to believe in the freedom of music,
But glittering prizes and endless compromises
Shatter the illusion of integrity.

As Hunter S. Thompson once wrote, “The radio business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side." Everything in music oriented radio is measured by charting and has lost its credibility. It’s slow to adapt to its new competition, the iPod. It’s so dysfunctional, I could write a book about it…oh, wait…

People in charge make very stupid decisions, sales people have weaseled their way into the programming side, the on-air talents are treated like seamstresses in a sweatshop, and I miss it every day of my life.

It’s unknown if I will ever get back on the air. I’d love to do it, but there are many things that I would have to consider (lower wages, going to work knowing that it could be my last day with a job).

I still believe in the freedom of music.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: There is a one night showing of the documentary Rush, Beyond the Lighted Stage at the Riverview Theater in Minneapolis at 9.

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The Museum Song - Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want

For many years, I just called it the “museum song”. That’s really how I knew it. In the one John Hughes film that didn’t make me want to throw things (a topic for a future discussion…maybe in August), there was this acoustic guitar and saxophone song that played as Ferris, Cameron and Sloane took their day off to the Art Institute in Chicago. It’s one of those film moments that will live in my memory forever.

Years had passed until I watched the film again; borrowing it from my then roommate. Seeing it again for the first time in over fifteen years, I was stunned when I realized it was a cover of “Please, Please, Please Let me Get What I Want.” When I mentioned it to her (which, by the way, she is a self professed Smiths fan), she argued with me that it wasn’t. Even after playing the scene for her and the song back to back, she still didn’t believe me. (Side note: She has since denied that this happened. However, D was a witness to this and can verify the story).

The Dream Academy cover was released exclusively in the UK. This is a little treat that Hughes gave us for the movie (as well as The English Beat’s “March of the Swivelheads”). It’s a song that I listened to many times before my own trip to the Art Institute last winter. The song ran through my head as I stood in front of Seurat’s “Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte".

Since then, another cover of this song has surfaced, and was a part of another movie. The latest version, recorded by She and Him, features a female vocalist.

However, as the days get nicer, I look out my window at work and think about having my own day off. Maybe I could con D’s boss so I can get her out of work and we could go to the Minnesota Institute of Art.

I know what song I’d play on the way there.  

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The Last 3:55 – “Layla” by Derick and the Dominos

It’s amazing how half of a song can be the polar opposite of the other. This is the case of the Derick and the Dominos song, “Layla”. At first, the song went by almost unnoticed. While the name Eric Clapton was known because of his ties with the Beatles, Yardbirds, and Blind Faith, however, nobody knew that Clapton was a part of the Dominos. It wasn’t until two years later when it was rereleased under his name did it receive air play, and only the first half of the song was featured on the radio.

The first part was written by Clapton (and Duane Allman…who is not credited). The song gets the title from a Persian fable (based on a true story) about a poet, Qays ibn al-Mulawwah ibn Muzahim, who was madly in love with a woman named Layla. Her father refused Qays request for her hand in marriage. She was rushed to the alter to marry another man. Heartbroken, Qays fled the village and went insane. This was how Clapton felt about his best friend’s wife. There has been much written about Clapton and Pattie Boyd, so I won’t really go into great detail about their tenuous marriage and how they got together.

Clapton single-handedly destroyed the song in 1992 when he performed it for MTV’s Unplugged series. Gone were the recognizable dueling guitar riffs from Allman and Clapton and the pain in Eric’s voice, beggin’ darling please. It was replaced with half-assed singing and an acoustic guitar presentation that was the auditory equivalent to watching paint dry. I guess as his passion for Pattie waned, so did the passion in the song.

However, to me, the best part of the song is the last 3:55--the second movement. That bit of the song (which many people mistakenly think was written by Clapton) was composed by Domino drummer Jim Gordon. This beautiful, yet simple, melody has a hopeful feel to it, rather than pining for unrequited (at the time) love. Each section of the movement ends with an arpeggio of the preceding treble chord.

The movement finally got the attention it deserved when it was featured in Goodfellas. It does seem unfortunate that it is known only for that. Anytime you hear the second movement in a TV show or movie, you automatically know that you're about to see a spoof of Goodfellas.

When I hear this part of the song, I imagine myself on a tropical beach. I’m sitting on an outdoor patio at night, surrounded by torches that illuminate the sky. This melody is playing while the warm breeze greets me and a cold beer.

Much like the poet of the song's namesake, Jim Gordon’s tale ended in madness. Gordon was an accomplished percussionist and had played with many artists including Randy Newman, Jackson Browne and Tom Waits, and he was the percussionist for the Muppet Movie Soundtrack. In the late ‘70s, he stated the he was hearing voices, including his mother’s, telling him to harm and starve himself. Mis-diagnosed as alcohol related effects, his condition worsened. In 1983, to make the voice stop, he brutally murdered his mother.  Although he was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, it was too late for his legal team to use the insanity defense.  He is currently serving time in the California Penal System. Several of his friends, fans  and well wishers have continued to petition the state to move him to a psychiatric facility. 

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A Harbinger of Things to Come– The Guns of Brixton by the Clash

Riots just don’t happen overnight. They come about from mounting tensions, and all it needs is a small catalyst. Stateside, we could look at Watts and South Central LA. One of the big ones in England was the Brixton Riots in 1981.

About a quarter of the population of Brixton district is African/Caribbean. In the late 70s and early 80s, the unemployment rate in this part of London hovered around 13 percent (25 percent of ethnic minorities were unemployed). The crime rate skyrocketed, and the Police were trying to crack down…leading to hostilities between the Bobbies and the residents.

A young black man was stabbed in the streets around 5 in the afternoon one day in April, 1981. The police attempted to aid him. Whether the crowd was angry because they didn’t realize what was going on, or they thought that the police weren’t doing all that they could to save him is unclear. What resulted was the explosion of pent up anger and frustration. The growing crowded turned on the police, which prompted those on the scene to call for backup. By the time the smoke cleared (literally) 279 police officers and 45 civilians were injured, over 100 cars were burned, and 150 buildings had been damaged.

If there were only some sort of warning that this could have happened.

Well, if the Bobbies were familiar with The Clash, they might have known. In 1979, Bassist Paul Simonon (who grew up in Brixton) penned “The Guns of Brixton”; noting the growing discontent in his old stomping ground. The reggae beat and bass line sets up the lyrics foretelling a violent interaction.

When they kick out your front door
How you gonna come?
With your hands on your head
Or on the trigger of your gun    

Now replace “Brixton” with “Arizona”. What? You don’t think that it can’t happen?

I’m not going to turn this into a debate about the political situation in the Copper State. No matter which side you’re on in this debate, you must admit that there is a potential of a Brixton style riot. All Arizona needs is an incident.

While this song has been covered by bands such as Arcade Fire, Die Toten Hosen and the Dropkick Murphys, the best cover of this song comes from an eight year old kid. Maria Gallagher, daughter of Clash studio musician Mick Gallagher, was recorded singing the song. That bit of audio was affixed at the end of “Broadway” on the Clash double album Sandinista! There’s something about a small child singing:

You can crush us
You can bruise us
But you'll have to answer to
Oh-the guns of Brixton

Precious.
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