In the so fucking wrong department, we have:

No Freddie, But for Queen the Show Must Go On:

British rock band Queen has kicked off its first tour since the death of Freddie Mercury in 1991, hoping that the strength of the songs makes up for the absence of the charismatic frontman. Two of the original band members strutted the stage at a south London venue late on Monday accompanied by Paul Rodgers, the man handed the unenviable task of filling Freddie’s shoes.

Um.

Ok…

So let me say, I was one of Queen’s biggest fans. I’ve lost count of how many times I camped out to get good tickets. I’ve seen Queen many, many times. I absolutely worshipped this band when I was a teenager. And I’m a fan of Brian May and Roger Taylor; I always thought they were the real creative force behind the band, still today think they wrote almost all the great songs (Freddy wrote a few, but pretty much all of Deacon’s songs sucked balls, never mind that they were hits).

So it’s not that I think Freddy was Queen. Freddy was the face and image of Queen, sure, but Queen was the music of Taylor and May along with Freddy.

But… Paul Rodgers?

I just ain’t feelin’ it, fellas. Really.

Johnny Ramone’s gravestone:

From GodPhoto via BoingBoing

This is one of those tiny things that can make a day better.

I do a lot of weird tool support at work. I’m the guy who gets the weird problems when the other support people can’t figure something out.

So I’ve got one now with Adobe FrameMaker on Unix.

The problem’s irrelevant, but I called Adobe support. And got put on hold.

…And there’s some of the best goddamned jazz I’ve heard in days. Bass that simply has to be Paul Chambers – I’d know that bowing style anywhere.

I didn’t know the song. It might be Miles Davis, or it might be someone earlier. Even Dizzy or someone like that; but some blistering trumpet.

Put me back on hold I wanted to say. Please.

Damn. That’s some good fucking jazz. I need to get my jazz CD’s organized (this will help, it should get delivered monday or tuesday. It’s currently in Fort Worth, TX according to the fed ex tracking site. I like the fed ex tracking site way too much). I’ve not been listening to jazz enough lately because my CDs are outta control and I can’t find anything.

Jazz makes my day better.

It’s been a long time since I’ve really played much guitar. I’m not a guitar player; I know how, in a rudementary way, and I own two guitars (though inexplicably I almost always seem to have at least three hanging around, not to mention someone’s mixing board, a couple mikes, and sometimes an amp — I know a lotta musicians).

But I don’t really play. I’ll pick up a friend’s axe to check it out, like when Chris, my main man, brings over his latest aquistion, and strum out a few chords. Like with drums, I know enough to watch and listen and evaluate, to talk shop with players and keep up. I can tell what a guy’s doing when he plays something flashy. But can’t really much get though a song anymore, it’s been too long and I’m forgetting.

But I love guitars. The sound of them, the look, the feel of one in my hands. It feels right when I strap on a guitar. Chris’ new telecaster felt like an old friend when I slung it on. I didn’t even have it plugged in, I just wanted to feel it.

Suddenly, I’m thinking, I need a guitar.

My acoustic is actually a really nice guitar. I’ve had friends borrow it to record, since it’s got a nice tone and is very playable. I’m happy with it, and so are the people who regularly pick it up to play when we get jam parties going. But my electric is pretty much a piece of crap. It’s an ugly white strat copy with a sort of explorer-looking head, cheap pickups, and the world’s worst tremolo bridge that’s going to need replacing if the things ever going to be worth playing. But you know, it doesn’t matter, I don’t play.

I should play though. I don’t know why I don’t. It doesn’t matter if I’m good. But I should be playing.

Then I found this thing:

Epiphone Flamekat. Go ahead, click it, it gets bigger.

You know, I usually can resist this shit. But — fuck, look at the inlays. Look at the knobs. How fucking cool is this guitar?

I know. I don’t need a guitar. I have a guitar. I have two. But… Dammit. I want it. I want to put a hook on my wall and display it.

I want…

I want to play guitar again. Looking at this stupid thing, I want to plug in and hack out social distortion songs. Story Of My Life.

Santa? I know, what I did to you wasn’t fair. But really, I’ve been a good boy. Maybe you could…

Nevermind. That’s a lie. I’ve not been a good boy at all this year. But this isn’t a good boy’s guitar, now, is it?

Trying to take this all in
I’ve got one, two, three, four, five
Senses working overtime
Trying to tell the difference
‘tween the goods and grime
Turds and treasure
And there’s one, two, three, four, five
Senses working overtime
–XTC, ‘Senses Working Overtime’

Turds and Treasure. That’s the phrase that’s been kicking in my head since I dug into someone’s collection of Prog Rock nuggets here.

I assume we’ve all done it. Pulled out some music, (or even something other than music but let’s limit it for now) that we once liked, and listened with excitement and trepidation. Will it still be good? Will it still have what it had? Will I like it anyway?

Read more “Turds and Treasure”

Your future is managed
And your freedom’s a joke
You don’t know the difference
As you put on the yoke

The less that you know
The more you fall into place
A cog in the wheel
There is no soul in your face

Oh, lord. I just found a shared music folder (iTunes has this cool ability to share music on a local network, so I get my co-workers iTunes libraries if they turn this on) with a vast library of seventies prog-rock.

Sometimes you just find the thing you need to improve your mood.

I’m delightedly listening to fucking Kansas as I write my yearly self-review. More on that stupidity in a minute, or possibly another entry. But — Kansas. One of the great stupid prog bands of all time. Great players, christian message that we all missed when we were all teenagers (Or we would not have listened to them). Dumb, dumb lyrics. The kind of band all the boys loved, and all our girlfriends hated. I can’t remember how many times I sat in the family room doing endless bong hits and playing Kansas as loud as our stereo could go.

Do they suck? I can’t honestly tell anymore. I know I bought Lefoverture recently and hated it, but now, listening to Masque and Point of Know Return, I feel nothing but glee. The cheesey organ, the dual lead guitars, rock fiddle, Phil Ehart’s under-rated drumming (He was one of the best drummers on the genre, and I never hear his name anymore). God, I loved this band. I can’t evaluate it any more, too much nostalgia value.

I can’t wait to see what else is in this cat’s library. All sorts of bands I used to love but have not listened to in decades. I have a feeling I’ll be posting more about stupid Prog bands I loved.

“Some songs need work; some write themselves. “Came out of the ground like a potato, always the best ones,” Waits says. “Most of my songs are contraptions. Take the head off that doll and screw it onto the side of that washing machine. But the best ones come out just like a litter. I usually start with two tunes, put them in a room together and they have kids. There are usually two songs that are the parents of the rest. That’s my theory.”

My mother, actually, just pointed out this interview to me.

SFGate’s Joel Selvin, who used to be a terrible pop music critic back in the, what, seventies, eighties, whenever he started, but has turned into a pretty good writer these days, interviewing Tom Waits.

That’s a really good interview. He mostly lets Waits, a somewhat reclusive man, speak for himself, but the writing manages to keep the vaguely surreal, vaguely poetic tone of Waits work. Not an easy thing to do and Selvin pulls it off.

I met Waits once, in Hawaii.

Read more “Most of my Songs are Contraptions”