Flaming Pablum

The Great Music Geek Survey Returns To Save Christmas

First, there was this one. Then came that one. After that came this one. And now, just in time for the holidays, comes this one....

List 10 musical artists that you like:
1. Killing Joke
2. Cop Shoot Cop
3. Firewater
4. The Stranglers
5. Devo
6. Kiss
7. Gang of Four
8. Cocteau Twins
9. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds
10. Julian Cope

What was the first song you ever heard by 6?
Probably "Rock N' Roll All Night," invariably (although I've never considered it one of their best).

What is your favorite album of 8?
I'm a big fan of the The Pink Opaque, if I had to choose one.

What is your favorite lyric of 5?
Oh you got a nickel
I got a dime
I'd like to get to know you
But I haven't got the time
You gotta walk like a mannequin
Roll like a tire
Act on reaction
Dodge the big spud fryer

What are your three favorite songs by 7?
"To Hell With Poverty," "Damaged Goods" and "What We All Want"

What are your favorite three songs by 2?
"Shine On, Elizabeth," "Two at a Time," "Heads I Win, Tails You Lose"

What are your three favorite songs by 9?
"Tupelo," "Red Right Hand" and "Papa Won't Leave You, Henry"

What is your favorite album by 1?
NightTime

How did you get into 4?
I randomly picked up an album of theirs in high school, attracted by their nasty name.

What are your three favorite songs by 3?
"Some Strange Reaction," "Get Out of My Head" and "When I Burn This Place Down"

What is a good memory concerning 2?
Seeing them play at Tramp's (with Barkmarket opening) sometime in the mid-90s and just fucking blowing a hole in the back of the place.

Is there a song by 8 that makes you emotional?
"Summerhead" off of Four Calendar Cafe.

What are your three favorite songs of 1?
"Eighties," "Harlequin" and "Follow The Leader" (this changes regularly, however)

What is your favorite song 10?
"Hanging Out & Hung Up On The Line"

What song is your favorite by all 10 artists?
"Eighties" by Killing Joke

Of all the bands & artists in your collection, which one do you have the most of?
Not sure, but quite possibly The Wedding Present, the Buzzcocks, Killing Joke or the Cocteau Twins.

What was the last song you listened to?
Something off Vince Guaraldi's A Charlie Brown Christmas

What's in your CD player right now?
See last question.

What is your favorite instrument?
Don't have one. They each have their place.

Who's your favorite local band?
Not sure they count as local anymore, being that Tod's traveling the world, but Firewater

What was the last concert you attended?
Mudhoney at the Bowery Ballroom

What was the greatest concert you've ever been to?
There has been a few of them. The first Lollapalooza (Jane's Addiction, Siouxsie etc.) was mighty good. The Killing Joke anniversary shows in `05 are tough to top as well.

What's the worst band you've ever seen in concert?
Too many to cite, but The Verve were really fucking boring (and I broke my wrist in a drunken stunt at the show).

What band do you love musically but hate the members of?
Probably Kiss.

What is the most musically involved you have ever been?
Involved? I was a college radio disc jockey for four years.

What show are you looking forward to?
I believe Iron Maiden are coming back to NYC soon-ish.

What is your favorite band shirt?
Way too many to choose from, but invariably a Killing Joke one.

What musician would you like to hang out with for a day?
I've been very lucky to have met and/or befriended many of the artists I've admired. The soppy answer would be Raven, who left us way too soon.

What musician would you like to be in love with you for a day?
That would be complicated, being that I'm married with children and all that.

What was your last musical "phase" before you wizened up?
Ah, I have no regrets.

Sabbath or solo Ozzy? Sabbath, but solo Oz had his moments.

Did you know that filling out this survey makes you a music geek? I'm fine with that.

What was the greatest decade for music?
The 80s, without a shadow of a doubt.

What is your favorite movie soundtrack?
"Repo Man" or "Mystery Train"

What's the most extreme music-related auction you won on eBay?
Hmmm. A deck of playing cards with the Stranglers logo on them. I don't know how extreme that is, but they're fairly rare.

What would you be without music?
A good deal wealthier, I'd imagine.

Sick of Being Sick

TITLE: "Sick of Being Sick"
ARTIST: The Damned
RELEASE DATE: 1977

I thought I was recovering, but maybe that trudge down cold Fifth Avenue with our new Monster Tryke pushed me back into the congested abyss. In any event, I'm still feeling entirely crappy, phlegmy, coughy, croaky, etc., so this particular single by ye olde Damned fits the bill and then some. Time to guzzle down a big fuck-off bottle of NyQuil and crank'er up!

And for some reason, the MOG player below is devoid of text (there's been a lot of change over on the Mog site). In any case, you can still hit "play" and rock out. Enjoy.

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The Tricycle Incident: Redux

So, I picked up that replacement tricycle for Charlotte today (after I foolishly broke her previous one last Sunday). Through the efforts of my new best friend, Noah at 6th Avenue Bicycles, I managed to procure a brand new "T-37 Retro Rider," manufactured by the same folks who make Radio Flyer red wagons and sleighs. It certainly sounded like what I was looking for last Sunday. It took a few days to get here, but Noah called me earlier to say he had it in his hot little hands and to come pick it up. I should also point out that it had just been rather significantly knocked down in the price department. My timing was excellent. So I went back to 15th street this afternoon to go get it.

Holy Crap, did Charlotte ever trade up!

I walked into the store and Noah wheeled out this gleaming, red and white chariot. It looked like something you'd see a juggling polar bear ride in a circus. Moreover, as stately and sturdy and handsome as it looked, it was big. Really big. I wasn't quite sure what to say. I thought I'd ordered a tricycle, not a goddamn fire engine. But, I'd already paid for it and he'd had it specially shipped here and everything. At the very least, I figured we'd probably have it for the rest of our lives and that Charlotte could grow into it and that we could then pass it onto Oliver and -- what the Hell? -- it is really pretty spectacular looking. "It's fuckin' SWEET, right?" beamed Noah. I was tempted to sit down on it and ride it home myself, being that it looked big enough to accommodate my forty year old frame. I picked it up, and found that it was as heavy as it was shiny. And lemme tell ya, it was plenty shiny.

As an extra karmic retribution for breaking my daughter's first tricycle, I found myself breathlessly carrying this unwieldy red and white carnival attraction back down Fifth Avenue. People looked at me and almost wondered aloud where the performing seal that goes with it was. After I struggled through our front door with it, I sat the new tricycle down next to the old one, still convalescing in our front room. It positively dwarfed it. It looks like the original tricycle's mother. I started to worry again. As if on cue, Charlotte came toddling out of her room, yawning from her afternoon nap. One look at this mighty contraption made her already oversized brown eyes grow even huger. "It's a little bit bigger," she quite correctly observed.

Tomorrow, we take it back outside.

That's The Spirit!

Spotted this note this morning posted up on the former site of BBQ (now slated to be yet another bank). Made my morning.

Vanishing Uptown

Excuse me while I careen from Downtown to Uptown in my slavish adoration of all things Manhattan, but there's a great article by John Strausbaugh (he of "Rock `Til You Drop" fame) in today's New York Times about the history and subsequent gentrification of the Upper East Side. Honestly, anyone who'd give a whiff of a damn about the subject probably already reads the Times, but I thought I'd give it a shoutout here anyway. You can check it out by clicking right here.

No One Is Innocent

There used to be this local artist/photographer on the downtown art scene of the 1980s named David McDermott. I probably shouldn't say "used to be" as he's invariably still around. In any case, he was a contemporary of folks like Jean-Michel Baquiat and Klaus Nomi and other cool cats like that. In fact, you can fittingly spot him alongside Basquiat in Glenn O'Brien's "Downtown `81" and the Klaus Nomi documentary, "The Nomi Song." In the former film, McDermott is billed as "The Man From The Past," and that was basically his shtick in real life. McDermott evidently lives the comparatively Luddite-esque life of a turn-of-the-century gentleman. This is manifested in both his self-styled 'archaic' photography through his flamboyantly eccentric wardrobe. I'd further imagine that you wouldn't find any modern conveniences like microwaves or iPods or a Tivo -- let alone a television -- in his home either. In a nutshell, he has renounced both the present and the future and prefers to live his life in the past. It's a neat trick, I suppose, if you're actually able to pull it off.

I can't help thinking how exasperated McDermott must get on a daily basis, although I'd suggest that each and every one of us dabbles in a similar state of -- sorry, David -- denial from time to time, albeit on a much smaller scale. For example, in the almost twenty years since I graduated from my college, I've only been back to visit the school once, and that was only mere months after I'd left it. I gather that in the ensuing years, there have been major cosmetic changes to the campus. Some of my peers have been back and said they barely recognized it. As such, I'd like to leave the university in my head just as I remember it, and if preserving that memory means never going back -- not a difficult feat, being that it's several states away -- then so be it. I often wonder if that's how I'll similarly feel about New York City some day.

As has been said -- and as David McDermott would probably be the first to tell you, though he still wouldn't acknowledge it -- New York City is changing. The slavishly beaten-into-the-ground rationalization for this, of course, is to paraphrase Heraclitis and say that change is the only constant in the urban environment. It's hard to contest that, but I'd always assumed that the changes that phrase alludes to are gradual ones. The changes that have engulfed New York City in the last decade and a half, however, have seemed rather swift and radical in comparison to any sort of gradual or organic shift. The changes to this city have been jarring and sadly irreparable.

In that documentary I posted about a day or so ago, "New York Lost," filmmaker Reed Korach culled some insightful testimonials from a fairly wide array of folks on both sides of the fence, but it's the words of the "pro-change"/"pro-gentrification" folks that have left me feeling so depressed, notably that contemptible Australian ex-pat who unreservedly states that "you don't really have a need for neighbors" when you live in Manhattan (hey Sheila, why not fuck off back to the Outback then -- you won't find a lot of annoying neighbors there either!). All I can say is that is that I've lived in Manhattan for all my life and have maintained active relationships with my neighbors in every single building I've lived in. Beyond my building, up and down University Place, I know most of the proprietors of the local businesses I routinely patronize by name, and I cherish that. It's that spirit of neighborhood community that makes living here special. Why would anyone not want that experience? I can't understand it.

But defying gentrification is a bit like attempting to stop a tidal wave. On a personal level, David McDermott's eccentric path might seem somewhat extreme, but there are people who take a conscious approach and live their lives and spend their dollars strategically. Given the petty minutia of everyday life, however, maintaining an anti-gentrification diet/shopping agenda must be a bit like being a Vegan in that you have to stop and consider the ramifications of every dollar you spend.

And while I'm generally more inclined to spend my dollars in local mom'n'pop shops than in big chain outlets, it's getting hard. Nine time out of ten, I'll sooner buy a compact disc at an independent shop like Other Music or Generation Records than at a Virgin or F.Y.E., although never mind gentrification, the advent of digital technology - let alone Amazon.com - has swept a vast swathe of those shops off the map already. People aren't "consuming" music the same way anymore. Similarly, I'll sooner go to Shakespeare & Co. for a book than Barnes & Noble, but the same rules are applying there.

Where I'm finding myself compromising these convictions, however, is with the staples. With two children to clothe and feed, I have to go where my money will take me the furthest. Unfortunately, this means that I have shopped at places like K-Mart, Babies "R" Us and fuckin' Whole Foods (or Ass-Whole Foods, as we've since re-christened it). Given the crushing expenses of living where we do, I don't have much of a choice in the matter. Of course, there's also the faction who suggest that I'm already part of the problem for having children in the first place. In the Vh1 documentary of a few months ago, "NY77," there was a quote from Blondie guitarist Chris Stein wherein he says that Manhattan shouldn't be safe for kids and strollers and such, being that it's "bad for the arts." He was semi-joking, I believe, but according to Wikipedia, he's got two daughters and he still lives here, so up yours, Chris. People procreate -- deal with it.

And if you're looking at it in a black & white, "part of the problem" /"part of the solution" sort of way, I'm already guilty. I'm a native New Yorker, but I moved downtown from the Upper East Side in 1996 to a building on East 12th Street. At this stage of the proceedings, the building -- to say nothing of the neighborhood -- was already a coveted piece of real estate, and while I may have been representing the bottom half of the building's collective income (don't go into journalism, kids, it's not a lucrative field), by moving there I arguably wasn't doing my part to help preserve the cultural and economic integrity of the neighborhood. So perhaps I should dutifully don my own scarlet letter "G."

Sure, it's naive to think that things last forever. But by the same token, it's lazily irresponsible to suggest that efforts cannot be made to save the things worth saving. To borrow a song title from the Sex Pistols, no one is innocent. I'm guilty as the next person for letting this all happen. That said, while I'm not a downtowner by birth, I sadly find that I know, revere, respect and appreciate the cultural and historical heritage of downtown Manhattan more than most of its current occupants. And you don't have to be a dyed-in-the-wool borough boy to notice how much has changed towards the bland, antiseptic, vapid and characterless, and not just in downtown Manhattan but throughout New York City. And you don't have to be David McDermott to acknowledge the luster, beauty and value of of this city's diverse heritage. Invest in it. Appreciate it. Help save it. When it's gone, it'll be gone for good.

There's Gonna Be A Snowstorm

.... or at least that's what the television is screaming at me at the moment. Who am I to argue? In any event, with this in mind, here's another great song from Galaxie 500 in anticipation of tomorrow's weather. Enjoy.

If you enjoy this song, be sure to click here too!

New York Lost

A filmmaker recently reached out to me, invariably prompted by all my grousing about gentrification. His name is Reed Fulton Korach, and he's made a short documentary called "New York Lost," ruminating on the changes that have transpired in New York City not only post-September 11th, but post-Giulliani's "Quality of Life" blitzkrieg of the 90s. You can see the film in its entirety for a limited time on its official MySpace page, and it's well worth checking out -- some truly hateful characters therein (notably "Noah, East Village Gentrifier" who extolls the merits of Whole Foods' uber-convenience). Do give a viewing, and check out the film's official website as well.

Nails & Mussels

TITLE: "Another Nail in My Heart"/"Pulling Mussels (From The Shell)"
ARTIST: Squeeze
ALBUM: Argybargy
RELEASE DATE: 1980

I went back up to the Upper East Side recently. There's something about that part of town around the holidays that always gets me nostalgic, being that I spent most of my life up there. While strolling around in the East 70s, I was instantly reminded of this song, thinking back to my grade school days prior to the advent of MTV. I vividly remember a Friday afternoon when my friend Rich and I went back to his place on East 96th street after school and flipped on the radio (something almost unheard of, these days), spending the rest of the afternoon just listening and watching the speakers in anticipation of each new selection. Back then, the local rock stations still seemed to seamlessly venture beyond parameter. It wasn't at all unlikely to hear Traffic, Led Zeppelin and Foreigner followed in swift succession by the Talking Heads, B-52s and Adam & the Ants. It all seemed so new. It's probably idealistic and a little revisionist of me to suggest as much, but it seemed like a healthier option compared to today's rigidly compartmentalized playlists that cater exclusively to pre-market researched demographics. It just seemed more open.

Beyond those afore-mentioned artists, I also link Joe Jackson, Ian Dury & The Blockheads, Elvis Costello, Blondie, Graham Parker, Split Enz, The Pretenders, Robert Gordon, Marshall Crensaw, Nick Lowe, Rockpile, The Cars and, of course, Squeeze to that era. Too accessible for orthodox Punk Rock (which I was also just discovering) and too early for the New Romantic set, these and other artists all fell under the catch-all umbrella (and hotly-contested term), "New Wave."

One of the more conventional bands of this gaggle, Squeeze's inclusion in the New Wave roster itself is somewhat arguable. Their record sleeves may have bore all the trappings of the era (day-glo colors, xeroxed photographs, angular fonts), but the band itself traded in a brand of straight-ahead pop that came steeped in the same tradition that informed Lennon & McCartney (a writing duo Squeeze's Chris Difford and Glen Tillbrook were frequently compared to -- somewhat overwhelmingly -- at the time). In the parlance of a youthful Upper East Side brat at the precipice of adolescence, although you might've heard them playing on the speakers at Fiorucci, Squeeze were always more JG Melon than CBGB. Unlike the work of so many of their garishly-sunglassed peers, Squeeze's songs eschewed paeans to urban upheaval or the exploration of dance floor frontiers in favor of mature themes, adult situations and naturalistic romantic entanglement. It wasn't at all unlikely to hear Squeeze singing about infidelity, estrangement and divorce while the rest of the world was doing "The Safety Dance."

By the same token, Squeeze still had a quirky, immediately distinctive sound. Back on the radio, once you found yourself emerging from the lethargic malaise of some awful track by Bad Company or The Doors, the opening notes of "Another Nail In My Heart" from the Argybargy album sounded legitimately like the freshest, most urgent music imaginable and a palpable blow against the empire. Never mind waving your lighter around, those taut, jumpy guitars made you want to put on your skinniest tie and pogo around the room. They may not have had the feral aesthetic of the Buzzcocks or the Ramones, but Squeeze still had caught a whiff of the future, and it didn't include plodding, self-indulgent solos.

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Similarly, "Pulling Mussels (From The Shell)" retained its sibling single's energy, but packed it with a gorgeous melody, Jools Holland's amazing boogie-woogie piano and the band's signature lyrical complexity (name-checking no less than Harold Robbins and William Tell in the process). Personally speaking, I cannot hear one of these tracks without pining for the other. On East Side Story, the album that followed Argybargy, Squeeze scored their biggest hit to date with "Tempted" (featuring the then-newly recruited Paul Carrack filling in for the absent Jools Holland) and even my dad bought that one (which, of course, meant I lost all interest -- once your parents appreciate your music, it's all over). The band's hits compilation, Singles - 45's & Under became a ubiquitous staple in the record collections of virtually every person I knew, and rightly so.

Twenty-seven years later, while Squeeze's name never springs to mind when I'm asked to cite my favorite bands, I still adore both "Another Nail In My Heart" and "Pulling Mussels (From The Shell)." They might lack the venom, lyrical spite and propulsive wallop of much of my favorite music, but I know timeless pop music when I hear it.

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The Tricycle Incident or Lamentations of a Bad Dad

I saw a big cardboard box for this unspeakably horrible thing in our building's basement trash room this morning and shuddered with palpable contempt. Our kids aren't quite old enough to grasp the whole concept of Christmas as yet, so it's not like they've been hitting me up with prezzie-requests (this is ultimately a good thing, what with Daddy being out of a job at the moment and all), but I know that day is coming very soon. Suffice to say, I'd sooner procure my daughter this than ever buy her a life-sized talking Dora. But it's a slippery slope.

Meanwhile, have you ever have one of those days when you wish the Earth would open up and swallow you whole or that a giant, 16 ton weight would fall from the sky and crush you the way they used to do in Monty Python's Flying Circus? Well, I had one of those yesterday. Y'see, at some recent point, we inherited a rickety old tricycle from a friend. For months, it lived in our front room, wherein I proceeded I stub my toe against it repeatedly. It wasn't until fairly recently that Charlotte actually started taking an interest in it. It took a while, but in relatively short order, she managed to get to a level of proficiency with it. There was still a lot of wobbling and whining and helpful pushing involved, but she was truly starting to get the hang of it and needing assistance less and less. Yesterday morning, we decided to attempt to defy the chilly winter grey with a trip to the playground, and at the last minute, Charlotte insisted that we take the tricycle along with us. It all went downhill from there.

When we got close enough to the playground, Charlotte assumed the tryke and started peddling towards it, albeit in a vaguely serpentine fashion. Because I'm such a whiney neurotic, I usually frown and roll my eyes at the notion of bringing things like the tricycle to the playground, as they're pretty much an invitation to conflict. Being that the concepts of "sharing" and "ownership" are still somewhat nebulous to three year olds, what invariably will happen is that some other little person is going to eye it the second Charlotte steps off it and grab it for themselves, and drama will summarily ensue. And let's face it, I hate the damn thing. There, I said it.

So, anyway, we entered the playground to find it absolutely empty. Either we were very early, or we were the only parents foolish enough to let our kids run around in the cold. Regardless, Charlotte immediately deduced that she wanted to go on the swings, so she peddled towards them accordingly. When she reached her destination, however, she somehow misjudged the distance and found herself awkwardly tangled between the tryke and the swing, with her foot painfully snagged between the pedals. I dutifully rushed over to extricate her. With Charlotte safely liberated from the clunky tryke, she assumed the swing. In a fit of pig-headed pique that had frankly been bubbling under all morning (probably the result of too much coffee and not enough breakfast), I foolishly acted on my ire towards the tricycle and literally tossed it over my shoulder. It landed behind me with a clanking crash (much to the wide-eyed shock of my wife standing nearby). Somewhat predictably -- although it didn't dawn on me while I was doing it, like the moron I am -- I managed to break the tricycle. The thin metal fork that held the front wheel had snapped like a graham cracker on impact.

I immediately felt like an insufferable jackass. When little Charlotte discovered that her tricycle was broken, she was mortified. My wife, meanwhile, was visibly -- and understandably -- furious. I don't think I could have possibly felt worse about myself. I struggled to mend the wounded tryke, but it was hopeless. We stayed in the playground until both of our kids started feeling cold and repaired back inside for lunch.

Still feeling like the worst person alive, I stepped out during the kids' nap-time to attempt to rectify the situation. My first stop was the new Toys 'R' Us Holiday Express that used to be Tower Records. The notion of shopping for toys in the space where I'd formerly procured vast swathes of my music collection would have normally been an anathema to me (my friend and former boss recently had to stop in there for a round of X-mas shopping and similarly remarked with a derisive shudder, "there are dolls in the jazz section!"), but I was desperate. I strode to the back of the store to find nothing but crappy BMX's and cheap-o Big Wheels -- not a tricycle in sight. I asked a clerk, and he looked at me like I was complete bonehead. "What'dya call those?" he said, pointing at the bicycles. I considered staying and correcting him and/or bludgeoning him to death with a life-sized talking Dora, but I had a new tricycle to find. I zipped out of Toys 'R' Us and hot-footed it to K-mart on Astor Place.

Clearly, I was being karmically punished for my admittedly thoughtless crime, as there is truly nothing I enjoy less, with the possible exception of wisdom-teeth removal, than going to K-Mart. But, again -- I was determined to do this. I raced down to their lower level and darted around the sickly maze. I came to a skidding halt at a row of garishly colored mini-bicycles, but still not a tryke in sight. I doubled around, racing through the toy section, but found only Dora's hateful mug laughing at me at every turn. This was strike two. No tricycles at K-mart.

Spat back out on Astor Place, I started to worry. How was I going to find a tricycle and why are they so damn hard to get ahold of anyway? I raced up 4th Avenue, hoping to find something on Union Square. I briefly stopped into Babies 'R' Us, but they had nothing for children over the age of two, so that was a lost cause. Now I was really despairing. Then I remembered that bike store on 6th Avenue and 15th Street. I raced west.

I must've staggered into 6th Avenue Bicycles with the look of a man in need, as the dude behind the counter was instantly concerned. "Tricycles?" I asked, between gasps. "Right over there," he said, pointing to a lone, blue and frankly flimsy looking thing that would never in a million years solve my problem. I told the guy -- a very understanding gent named Noah, as it turned out -- about my plight. "Ah, you want the classic tricycle! The red and white kind, right?," said Noah. He picked up the phone and dialed a number while I stood fidgeting. Noah started chatting with a guy in a warehouse somewhere. "Hey, Steve? It's Noah on 6th Avenue. Do we have any more of those Tricycles? Y'know -- the Radio Flyer kind?" My hopes started spiraling upward. "Dude, I can go pick it up myself if they have one," I hungrily chimed in. Noah looked at me and mouthed the word "WESTCHESTER" and I cooled back down. It would be a couple of days, at least.

To make a long story short, I decided to order a classic red & white Radio Flyer model tricycle for my little girl. I know it doesn't excuse my self-centered, thoughtless action of yesterday, but I'm more haunted by the sight of Charlotte's tearful little face upon discovering her broken tricycle than I can possibly put into words. If this experience has taught me anything, it's that no matter how much I may think that parenting has changed me, I'm still ultimately fallible and still entirely capable of being an abjectly self-centered jerk.

Clearly, I've still got lots to learn.