Stu Sturgis, meet Ray Davies.

Johnny Thunder lives on water, feeds on lightning.

Thanks, Ray Davies and thank you Stu Sturgis for once again bringing the good things to life.

Last night's Dog People show was killer and the best song of the evening was, ironically, “Where Have all the Good Times Gone?”

Goddamn, I love The Kinks.

The Benjamin Orr Trifecta

"Moving in Stereo" was just floating in from the coffee shop next door. I know it's eternally connected to Phoebe Cates' body and rightly so but it's only the middle section of three perfect songs to me.

I played the hell out of The Cars when it came out. From the first day my dad brought it home from the record shop he owned, it was mine. I played it inside and out. I got the cassette. Played it on my boom box at school. I did the same thing with Candy-O. I took both the tapes and played them nonstop on a school bus trip. Everyone needed to be a Cars fan, I thought.

The trifecta that is "Bye, Bye Love," "Moving in Stereo," and "All Mixed Up" is a beautiful thing. I love the entire album but side 2 is where it's always at. "You're All I've Got Tonight," leading off the side, is one of Ocasek's best songs and the never skip a beat moment that pops right into "Bye, Bye Love" always gets me where it hurts. It sets off over ten minutes of one of the best song sequences in rock. I don't want to blather on about how much I love of which particular song but Orr's vocals are sublime, perfect, wonderful. Eliot Easton's playing is over the top, and Greg Hawke's keys, synths, and especially his sax solo closing out the album on "All Mixed Up" is simply put, a reason to start the album over again.

Here it is, in parts, but worth the time to watch.

Shake, Rattle, and more shakes.

Jerry Garcia and I only have one thing in common. Even from the grave a dead person can still have something in common with another person. It's true. I've done the research. Julie Andrews may have the same flat feet as Harpo Marx. Paul Weller might have, say, the same love of hangnails as Ernest Hemingway. Paris Hilton could be walking around with the same unsightly tongue mole that plagued Audrey Hepburn. It happens. Does that make the living doppelgangers for the dead? Maybe. Does my chocolate shake addiction, the thing I have in common with Jerry Garcia, make me likelier to wear black T-shirts as a force of habit and grow a groovy beard? No. But the addiction may kill me. Not as slow-fast-slow as heroin but it may give me the betes and no one wants that.

The Queen City Roller staff was sent out across the region to recon various shake making establishments and to report back with their findings. Your humble editor graciously agreed to accompany staff on their trips to various chocolate shake making huts to provide an unbiased second opinion. Here are the results. Remember, only chocolate shakes were served because that's all Jerry Garcia liked. And the editor too.

Steak n' Shake - With an "n" in your name, how can you not suck? Yuck. Yuck Yuck. Steak n' Shake shakes are awful. They have the taste of really cheap chocolate syrup, like government cheese chocolate syrup and sometimes, malt gets mixed in with the shake. The worst part about Steak n' Shake shakes besides the taste is the terrible value of their to-go cups. For just under $4 you get a plastic cup that tapers just under the lip making it just a few ounces bigger than a small. One time, in desperation, I ordered a large shake. The soda jerk made me a small. "I ordered a large," I said. He then took the small and poured it into a large cup! Can you believe it? Jerk.

All fast food shakes - suck. The value is bad and they're all made too fast to care. Only Hardee's uses the hand dipped method but their size to value ratio is the pits. And, all the shakes taste the same. Shitty. Oh, and don't skimp on shaky goodness by letting them top the things off with whipped cream. It's a trick used by the big coffee chains to rip you off. I mean, you want more frappy coffee goodness, not whipped fucking cream. If you were to get a Slurpee you wouldn't stop before the top and then add a bunch of white stuff? No! You would fill it up so even the dome was packed. That's the way you do it.

Andy's - tastes like a Wendy's Frosty and it's $4 more. Bad deal. Buy the Frosty and don't call it a shake. I will add that I bet Andy's uses better ingredients.

Braum's = awesome! 4.9 stars out of 5. Braum's shakes are huge, no tapered cups, no whipped cream. These shakes are brimming with cool goodness and the staff, who see you drive up every day, have the courage to call you by your first name. You're a regular. You're their hero. Braum's uses hormone free milk and ice cream that they make themselves in Oklahoma. It's Okiefied and it's full of natural goodness. The only reason Braum's is a 4.9 and not a 5 is because it's not...

Casper's - That's right! Tommy makes the best shake in town. Tall. Good. Wonderful. Casper's might even use the cheap stuff but it's the way it's presented, over flowing like the burgers and chili, that makes the chocolate shake at Casper's top shelf. Their chocolate shakes are addictive, like heroin, and that's why Jerry Garcia, were he alive today and living in The Queen City, would be sipping a tall cool one while coming off a nod, at Casper's.

ap - 2008

Dog People - Fools Face shows to brighten the holiday corners!

I'm back! Too long a holiday off the blog. Michelle says that it isn't a blog if you don't update the thing so it's about damn time.

There are two big shows after Christmas is done and the misery is lifted in the Queen City.

Friday, the 26 The Dog People will be at The Outland Ballroom.

The Dog People have been playing together for about 25 years. Traditionally the Dog People have been called upon to entertain the masses around the holidays while playing absolutely NO holiday music. None. They'll play for hours because that's what you do with cover songs, you play the shit out of them. They'll play Traffic, Small Faces, soul nuggets, Stones, Stones, Stones, to a packed house that shows up expecting to get exactly what the Dog People deliver. The goods? Damn right.

The Dog People consist of Nashville good time man and Ozark Mountain Daredevil Supe Granda on bass. Supe's got some original material that he's thrown to the Dogs and it gets played rather well. On drums is Tommy Whitlock resident Oscar winner. His drumming finesse usually takes my breath away. On guitar, flying in from Los Angeles, is Terry Wilson. In the 1980s Terry was in The Rave-Ups. They used to be Molly Ringwald's favorite band. Now, it's just really cool when they come around on the iPod. Lead vocals are filled by Wunderle. Seeing Wunderle on stage when I was young was what made me want to get up there too. Not Mick, not Patti, not The Clash. It was Wunderle then and it still is now. He's the best front man this town has ever known. I mean, remember The Symptoms? Seriously.

Saturday, the 27, Fools Face , will be downstairs at The Highlife Live.

This incarnation of the legendary Power Pop band will consist of Jimmy Frink, Brian Coffman, Jim Wirt, and Chris Coffman on the drums. For those who need to be in the know, there was a time when Fools Face were the toppermost of the poppermost in Springfield and the whole damn Midwest. Infectious. Stunning. Brilliant. They resurfaced in the late 90s and put on a trio of powerhouse shows at the Outland to record a live album in the early 2000s. I can't say enough about how incredible there albums are or how much they meant too so many people in the Queen City. Their first three albums and some other live material can be downloaded from this killer site put up by a friend of theirs in Texas. Here's the TrouserPress entry for this formidable and amazing band. Tickets are on sale @ Kaleidoscope for $10.

Finally Facing My Waterloo.

It's no secret that I love Abba! Between 1974 and 1977 all I listened to were Elton John, Queen, Heart, Abba, and Disco. The wonder that I am not the homosexual is not lost on me. I've figured out that when The Cars and The Police came around they spoke to me and I then I found myself. And the girls quite fancied my new waviness. I guess that makes me Ducky. So what.

I stood in for my girlfriend last night for "girls movie night out" at Mamma Mia. As much as I love Abba I hate musicals, unless they're Tommy, Hedwig, or RHPS. The little woman had a migraine. Old friends were in town. She really wanted to go but her brain was doing the clampdown. So, I was her proxy. I had a great time.

Mamma Mia was a delight. Wonderfully cast, Meryl Streep is great, scenic locals, great Abba hits and some filler songs that stunk. I thought the interpretations of the songs, the skillful use of lyrical content with plot, and the whole movie felt like The Tempest. Maybe it was the whole Greek thing. Tempest fugit.

I was disappointed with the absence of "Knowing Me, Knowing You." One of the all time best videos, best songs, and best fucking everything. It's usually an open-mic stunner. Still, I got to sing it in the car on the way home.

One more thing, Pierce Brosnan is a singing penis. I don't mean a euphemism for penis, I mean an actual penis. Either that or a really sexy Gordon Lightfoot.

And you couldn't get a better recommendation than that.
Now, sing along to this.


ap - 2008

The Broken West

Jason whipped I Can't Go On, I'll Go On by The Broken West my way last spring. I love it. This is wonderful, pure, Power Pop sent from the clouds. The Broken West, out of sunny LA, open the album with one of the best tunes of the last five years, "On the Bubble." This track makes any brilliant pop cassette even better. It gives a striking opening punch to any comp you put together. The rest of the album is just amazing and as much as I repeat "On The Bubble," "You Can Build An Island" is my favorite track. There's great guitar work here, brilliant harmonies, and this is such a strong, kick ass debut, that I'm going to stand in the street and scream about it.

Their sophomore effort, Now Or Heaven, has just been released. I haven't heard it yet but that's going to be part of my life's work for the next few days.

Just get the damn thing.

ap -2008

Power Pop Heaven

Download this stuff now!
These songs will save you in times of trouble.

The absolutely coolest thing on the webbernets is this, people; http://powerpopcriminals.blogspot.com/search?q=ultimate+powerpop+guide

Here's an abstract from Angelo, the man responsible for taking us to Power Pop Heaven.
Thanks, Angelo.

If you're blogging around, now you know there's a list of the 200 most essential power pop recordings of the last +35 years. John M.Borack has put together the list for the excellent "Shake Some Action" book published by Bruce Brodeen and Not Lame. John Borack is one of the preeminent writers/reviewers covering the power pop/pure pop musical style we all know and love. You may or may not agree with the list (IMHO i do agree mostly with that list, even though mine would have been different) but i guess it would be interesting to post a complete "Best" of the ultimate power pop guide. So, i picked one song from each album selected by John Borack. My picks were totally subjective, so you won't get any "September Gurls", Rock'n'Roll Girl"', "Tomorrow Night" or other all-time classics. I tried (but not always) to not chose the songs you could already find on some famous power pop compilations ("Yellow Pills", "Poptopia" or the Rhino "DIY Series" and many others...).

ap - 2008

The Raspberries - "I Wanna Be With You"

The Raspberries "I Wanna Be With You"

Released 1972

Ah, the opening track on "Fresh." You can't beat an album that opens with a simple drum roll that segues into chiming, open chords, and lyrics about teenage romance. "I Wanna Be With You" makes Vietnam seem like a distant memory, even if it's 1972. Just think about it, there you are in your Duster driving to the "Stop n Shop" thinking about Vietnam, if only for a minute, and the DJ spins out this nugget of pure powerpop shang-a-lang. You can't help but go faster, turn up that factory-in dash stereo, and drive straight to your girlfriend's house or trailer. Chances are she's got a cooler car.
Dad bought her that Nova.

And you knew that tonight would feel so right didn't you? I mean you've been seeing her for what four months and she hasn't given it up? Well Eric Carmen's made everything alright for you... He's given you an in. There's nothing that would make a 1972 Ohio evening perfect and all that silly war crap go away than you and your girl, in the back of her car, with "I Wanna Be With You" blaring the hi-fi. It's like Eric Carmen is Cyrano. He's taking the panties off for you. He's so convincing. Your love could really live forever, tonight.

But be careful. For while "I Wanna Be With You" is one of the greatest powerpop songs of all time, I mean all the ingredients are there, it's all harmonies, a walking bass line, chimey guitars, the verses are only two frickin' lines, the song does have one of rock's signature lyrics encouraging date rape...

"Hold me tight

Our love could live forever after tonight

If you believe that what we're doing is right

Close your eyes and be still."

Or it's the best line to get into a girl's pants EVER!

ap-2007

"Go All The Way" b/w "I Wanna Be With You"

The super sugar sweet world of 80s Pandora

I work at a library. Next door, at the coffee shop, great people do great things. Large doors separate us but they're always open and the ace kicking stink of coffee and the musical what-nots of any employee fill this space that's traditionally hush, hush. Mallory, could be blasting some Guided By Voices or Sonic Youth. Jami, likes things soft and twangy. Ian, he's a songwriter guy and frankly too sensitive for a Dutchman. Tom, he's all over the map.

There's a turntable at the coffee shop and Tom, has a crate full of records. Leon Russell, Big Bambu, The Commodores, Sly Stone, Cat Stevens. These records hide how much of a Rush fan he really is. Huge. He could be Geddy Lee if he wasn't Tom. He's that much Rush. Maple or Oak, he can't decide which tree he likes better. I bet when he's driving, Tom's marching with the Oaks but when he's with his daughters it's the Maples. This morning was a different story.

The beauty of Pandora is how easily we can lose ourselves in our own usness. That shit we picked out is US. Okay, I wouldn't have picked Six Pence but I did pick out The Sundays and Pandora got that one right. Harriet Wheeler can do no wrong. Tom loves the Pandora.

This morning it's 80s hits: Our House, Howard Jones, Heart and Soul, Outfield, Quaterflash, Romantics, Donald Fagen from that fucking awesome and don't you fucking forget it smash album that I can never forget and absolutely tell everybody I know to get it, The Nightfly. Dexy's, Duran Duran, Bangles, Sewing Machines of Love, Culture Club, King of goddamn Pain. Berlin, No More Words, a personal favorite of mine for private reasons that will remain private. Okay, sexy dancing. I really need to hear Lene Lovich's Lucky Number to complete an incomplete vision of dark haired, sexy dancing, Serbian, 1980s eroticism.



Watching the sunrise over such a beautiful park as the one we have here is made all the more special by Come On Eileen. If I only had a pair of coveralls that would really cover all. And a floppy hat. That would really make the people outside follow me around and "Toora Loo-Rye-Aye!" And who doesn't want to do that in the first days of Fall?


ap - 2008

The first time I heard the MC5

This is one of my formative experiences...

I was working at Hastings (an old entertainment store in Springfield, MO) and there was this really cool guy name Chris who worked there. He was a few years older than I was, (I was 21) and way more knowledgable about music than I was, but I was trying to play cool with him. We were talking about stuff and the topic wandered over to Henry Rollins and I was like, "Oh, I love 'Kick Out the Jams' that song rocks" and he looked at me kinda funny. He says, "You've heard the MC5 version right?" like he's afraid of my answer. I said, "Huh?" He jumped up and down, and was yelling, "Oh my God! Wait till close! You're about to get an education!" I had absolutely no idea what I was in for.

The store closed...half the lights were out, and from the huge soundsystem in the store I hear, "KICK OUT THE JAMS, MUTHAFUCKA!" and it was bliss from there on out. Suddenly I was launched into this whole new world of ROCK that was different from what the mainstream rock was that I was listening to. I didn't know anything but while I was standing there in the book section, mouth agape, soaking it all in, I thought, "I must have more of this." (I'd been listening to Radiohead a lot) To hear the MC5 for the first time like that was like the Heavens parting and the voice of the Almighty saying, "Let there be Rock!" (like in the AC/DC song) just for me.
I had heard rock before, but it was cold and empty. This had swing and was loose but tight all at the same time. The bass was what sucked me and swirled me around and pulled at my gut. The howls were unparalleled and the mix allowed me to imagine they were just on the roof rockin' the house down. I wish everyone coulda had that experience. It's a great one.

So, thank you, Chris for tearing me away from the shoe-gazers and the imitators. Thank you for an experience I will never forget. Thanks to you, I'll be in the nursing home, with Alzheimer's, happily screaming "Kick out the Jams Muthafucka!"

jae - 2006

How I fell in love with Rock and Roll

My folks have never been music lovers. This has always struck me as odd because my dad's uncle, Don Day, has practically dedicated his life to bluegrass music. He converted his dairy farm in Conway, Missouri into a sort of amphitheatre / campground hybrid, and puts on a fairly large bluegrass festival (Starvey Creek Festival) twice a year. Uncle Don's vision and hard work seems to have paid off, too. He doesn't milk cows anymore. Anyway, one might think that this passion for music would have made its way down the gene pool to my father. But it didn't. When I was small, you could count the records in our house on one hand: a couple of Ventures albums that I suspect he bought for the bikini clad girls on the cover, a carpenters album, and a couple of (fat era) Elvis 45's. These were all filed away neatly in the console of the record player that was seldom touched.

Around the time that I was about ten or eleven years old, my folks decided that the old record player was of no use to the family. The record player, it's console, and the contents inside were hauled away (big loss, I mean the fucking Carpenters?!). It's likely that this may have been inspired by one of those "purge your lives of rock music" sermons that we heard at church regularly, but I can't be sure of that

A couple of years later, we moved to a new house with a basement. One day I was rummaging around in the basement looking for a tennis ball that I'd been aimlessly bouncing against the wall for what seemed like hours when I came across an LP that had fallen between the cracks and ended up in the same cardboard box that my tennis ball had landed in. The record's jacket was mustard yellow. In the middle was a circular "fish eye" photo of three really freaky looking guys with huge Afros. Printed across the bottom, in bold purple letters and a font that reminded me of wax dripping down the shaft of a candle were the words, Are You Experienced? "Clearly not," I thought to myself; and I desperately wanted to be.

The image that those three guys (especially the one in the middle) projected from that album cover was irresistible to me. The only problem was that I had no turntable to play this LP on. I tucked the record under my arm, bolted upstairs, and stashed it away alongside my sports illustrated swimsuit issues. It just felt like contraban somehow. I'd get it out every now and then and just stare at it and wonder what kind of sounds would jump out of those grooves if I ever had the chance to drop a needle in them.

By the time I got to the ninth grade, my folks had noticed how much in enjoyed listening to the radio in the car and bought me a "boom box" type cassette player/radio (though I still had no tapes). Also around this time, I had earned their trust enough to be dropped off at the mall on Friday nights with my friends. One of the first things I did when I got there was head straight for Camelot to get a copy of Are You Experienced? on cassette so I could finally hear it (I had actually skipped lunch all week and pocketed my lunch money so I could afford it). My friends laughed. They were all listening to Tone Loc and Vanilla Ice. I didn't care. Hell, if I'd had my own ride, I would have left right then. The suspense had been building for about a year and I couldn't wait to satisfy my curiosity.

Anyone familiar with this classic album can probably guess the rest of the story. My life was changed when I heard the grinding, opening riff of Purple Haze. And the backward guitar riff on the title track even frightened me (still does a little bit). Though it seems obvious now, at the time I could hardly believe how great this music was and the jacket (as much as I love it) paled in comparison. I was hooked

je- 2008

Portishead - Portishead - 1997

Got the second Portishead cd at the library. Pretty stunning. They're one of those countless bands that I've always read glowing things about, but have never gotten around to hearing. My only objection is that the gal singing (Beth Gibbons) emphasizes the nasally, cutting edge of her voice more often than she needs to. She clearly has some good vocal abilities, and uses them accordingly. I could stand to hear more of her subtle, breathy, back-of-the-throat singing more often. That fingernails on blackboard singing fits some of the tunes, but a little goes a long way with me. Having said that, what an amazing, dark, creepy, hazy musical world those folks have created. David Lynch nightmare druggy evil clown music. The perfect soundtrack to Cindy McCain following you through the woods in a blood-stained wedding dress while clutching a meat-cleaver and smiling the whole time as she softly intones, "turn around and look into my eyes, my eyes, my sweet white eyes..."

mh - 2008