John Edwards...I never liked the guy.

Ever had that feeling about someone that made you just not like them, then, later on, you fiond out that your gut feeling was spot on the money? That's how I've always felt about John Edwards and, thus, the news of his extra-marital activities, resulting love-child, and *GASP* sex tape come as absolutely no surprise.

Okay, maybe the sex tape is a bit of a surprise.

Of course, when you realize that most politicos conduct themselves like the "rock stars" of Washington D.C., and that there are a surprising number of women perfectly willing to catch their loads (hey, I just call 'em how I see 'em), John Edwards definitely falls into Vince Neil territory.

Sadly, while I never liked Edwards one single bit, a lot of my friends once placed a lot of political faith in the guy.

They weren't alone, of course. Seems quite a few wealthy supporters of Edwards unknowingly saw their humongous contributions go towards hiding his mistress and her soon-to-be-born daughter.

That Edwards felt that it was perfectly fine to try hiding such a skeleton in his closet until he could secure a VP or Attorney General spot is completely deplorable, as if once he landed such a position, he could weather the storm of any such scandal.

They won't be able to get rid of me then, he probably thought.

Thankfully, Edwards political ambitions were thwarted by a general consensus from others in the political world that he was not a sound candidate for any high-ranking position.

Most annoying of all - more than cheating on his wife...and twice as much as knocking up his mistress - is this guy's obsession with his fucking hair. I mean, who the fuck loves their hair that much? The Fonz? Andrew Dice Clay? Vinnie Barbarino? Seeing that footage of Edwards endlessly primping his used-car-salesman-of-the-month haircut as if he is God's gift to, I dunno, hair-dom, is sickening.

Truth be told, the guy deserves to his lovely locks shaved clean off and auctioned for charity, thus allowing him to concentrate on not being a total self-centered scumbag.

Quite awesomely, it was great to see wife Elizabeth file for separation. This is quit a refreshing change from most other political wives who love the lifestyle enough to put up with almost anything from their pasty-thighed Washington D.C. rock star hubbies.

Blast From The Past: Dr. Hook

My dad was not your run of the mill dad when it came to music (or anything else, for that matter). That he loved Cheap Trick almost as much as I did was the one thing we may have had in common and, on occasion, but we never did reach an agreement on Janis Joplin. He loved her, I didn't. To my ears, she sang like a woman in serious need of a bath, as did another one of my dad's favorites, Joe Cocker.

While it was my younger brother and I who turned my dad onto Cheap Trick, dad played Dr. Hook so often that you either liked them or went plum crazy. I chose the former.

On first glance, Dr. Hook looks like the sort of guys you see stumble into the local watering hole and a split second later you're paying your check, hoping to get outta there before all hell breaks loose. On album, though, you quickly realize that these guys are the musical equivalent of Cheech & Chong.

With fun-loving tunes like "I Got Stoned & I Missed It", "Get My Rocks Off", and "If I'd Only Come And Gone", you couldn't help but laugh at the absolute absurdity of it all. Even as a kid, I wished I could have been a fly on the wall during one of the band's recording sessions. Knowing as I did, for example, that those weren't really chipmunks singing on my Alvin & The Chipmunks 45's, I knew that one could approximate just about anything in the recording studio. It would have broken my heart to see the members of Dr. Hook each drive up in their own wood panel station wagon, kiss the wife goodbye, and wonder to themselves at the last moment if this was the same polo shirt they'd worn to the studio the day before.

Then I'd take another look at the picture of the band on the back of the album; Ray Sawyer wearing his trademark eye patch and cowboy hat, Dennis Locorriere's face mostly obscured by a large beard of questionable origin, and realize that these guys were exactly who they claimed to be on their albums. For once, this was truth in advertising, baby!

Of course, the band was more than just about musical comedy. If you listened long enough, you'd find yourself laughing so hard that tears rolled down your face to crying like a baby as Locorriere's voice seemed to breathe all the sadness in the world into tear-jerking gems like "Sylvia's Mother" and "The Things I Didn't Say".

Imagine my surprise, though, to find that the lyrical mastermind behind the band was the very same fellow who'd written such acclaimed children's books as "Where The Sidewalk Ends", "The Missing Piece" and "A Light In The Attic". I call them children's books because, chances are, you'd see them in every kid's room back in the day, but those books were just as enjoyable to adults and remain some of my favorite works of verse to this day.

That Silverstein was behind such subversive fare as "Don't Give a Dose to the One You Love Most", an ode to, of all things, venereal disease just made me love him that much more.

Without question, the Dr. Hook saga would not have been the same without him. In fact, when the band chose to part ways with him and write their own material, it wasn't.

It was because they'd been heard by musical director Ron Haffkine, who'd been overseeing music for the Dustin Hoffman film, "Who Is Harry Kellerman And Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me?" (a great film that is criminally unavailable on digital format, by the way), that they'd been chosen to perform the songs Shel Silverstein had written for the film. The film's theme song, "Last Morning", would later appear on the group's aptly-titled second album, Sloppy Seconds.

But, make no mistake, Dr. Hook was not some record company concoction that simply made a career of singing someone else's songs. They were a real band that had come together in the tough biker bars of New Jersey. It has been said that the members found common ground in the fact that no other bands in the area would have them.

With the ironic success of the song "The Cover Of The Rolling Stone", followed closely by their appearance on the cover of that very magazine, a whole generation of music lovers were soon in tune with the band's lovable brand of irreverent humor.

While the band maintained a relatively steady level of success for nearly a decade, scoring their last Top 10 hit single in 1980 with "Sexy Eyes", most amazing was how easily they made the transformation to a serious singles act in later years, scoring Top 10 hits with songs such as "When You're In Love With A Beautiful Woman" and "Sharing The Night Together".



Oddly, their 1978 album, Pleasure And Pain, featured three Top 20 singles, yet managed a meager peak chart position of #66.

The early '80s saw Ray Sawyer eventually leave the band, followed by a host of personnel changes that led to the eventual "Dr. Hook's One And Only Farewell Tour".

Buy Some Doctor Hook

Song Of The Day: Gary Numan "This Wreckage"

When "Cars" hit the U.S. Top 40 in 1978, it signaled a huge shift in the musical tide that would ultimately lead to a little thing called video killing the big, bad radio star. Of course, Gary Numan didn't need no stinkin' video to jettison this little ditty up the American charts, dominating radio airwaves from coast to coast.

What I have always loved most about Numan is his 100% commitment and adherence to the sci-fi persona he crafted during his days in Tubeway Army. For anyone into Philip K. Dick novels as much as I, it's easy to see where Numan draws much of his influence. Numan, like Dick, embraces isolation, alienation, and the sinking feeling that things may not be what they appear.

Numan went from singing about such topics to feeling them first-hand, going from talented up-and-comer to worldwide superstar in such a short amount of time that one barely had time to enjoy the ride. Of course, just as soon as he'd reached the top, gravity quickly pulled him back to Earth - at least in America, where he would never have another hit.

Telekon, the follow-up to Pleasure Principle (the one with "Cars" on it), did not deviate at all from the template that Numan had created and honed to near-perfection. If anything, perhaps his dedication to that persona is what did him in. Bowie, who went through his own sci-fi "spaceman" phase, may have been smart by mining it for all it was worth over the course of a couple years before tossing it aside like a dirty shirt.

Opening track "This Wreckage" seems to hint at the stark reality looming on the horizon. Perhaps Numan knew that his chart ride was over, but one gets the feeling he could not have cared less. Numan, like all great artists, is smart enough to view runaway chart success as the absolute deviation from reality that it is and to simply continue going about his business.

As a result, Telekon ranks as one of Numan's best albums. While millions may know every word to "Cars", very few took the time to get to know this album and, well, that's a darn shame. To me, at least. I don't think Gary lost one minute of sleep over it.

Does Gary Numan sleep? Do androids dream of electric sheep?

Gary Numan - This Wreckage
Super Ultra Bonus: Live version

BUY Telekon!

Song Of The Day: Mi-Sex "Castaway"

My absolute favorite track from my third favorite Australian band (behind Angel City and Hoodoo Gurus), Mi-Sex. This is from their hugely underrated (and unavailable) last album, Where Do They Go?, which should have been a huge hit. HUGE!

Mi-Sex - Castaway

I Hate WalMart, But This Was Funny!

It was the best part about last night Vikings/Saints game...sigh.

How To Know If You're A Clumsy Idiot Or Not, Part One

If you trip and fall, spilling a beer in your own living room, you are NOT a clumsy idiot. Drunk idiot, maybe. :)

If, on the other hand, you trip and fall, ripping the fuck out of a valuable Picasso painting, you are indeed a clumsy idiot.

It seems that some mouth-breathing dork did just that last week at NYC's Metropolitan Museum Of Art. While the six-inch rip sustained by Picasso's "The Actor" can reportedly be repaired in such a manner as to be "unobtrusive" to the human eye, the fact remains that this should never have happened. People have been walking in museums for hundreds of years, and, while this is not the only time in recorded history that someone has accidentally damaged something, such incidents are extremely rare. In other words, whoever did this is one of only a few people EVER to rip a valuable work of art.

The thing is, I can't help think that this person either just kept right on walking like nothing happened, or, when they reported it, they did so with absolutely no concern for what they'd done. "Um, hi, yeah, I accidentally ripped one of your paintings. Can you validate my parking stub?"

In much the same way that I am driven to pull up next to some crazy-ass motorist who does something unbelievably stupid while driving, so that I may see what stupidity looks like, I think they should publish a photo of whoever did this so we can all make sure to keep everything valuable out of their way. Better give them a sippy-cup so they don't spill coffee on the Mona Lisa while we're at it.

Thanks to this one person, museums will begin displaying artwork in such a way as to prevent further damage. The days of walking right up to a priceless, breathtaking work of art will soon go the way of the do-do bird thanks to the ever-increasing number of proverbial do-do birds who walk (and drive) among us.

My advice: visit a museum now, while you can still see the artwork without having to gaze through three inches of bulletproof plexi-glass that truly succeeds at nothing more than displaying the reflection of the people standing behind you. "Oh, so glad I paid $10 admission to see the reflection of the lady with the nose hair moustache, who insists on following me around. I wonder if she's ever tripped over it and ripped a Picasso..."

Song of The Day: The Lover Speaks "Every Lovers Sign" Dance Mix

I really, really adore that first album by British duo The Lover Speaks. When I posted the album tracks in 2008, I received a number of really nice emails from folks all over the planet who also loved the very underrated album and had been looking for it online (some for years). I was glad to make it available, as I am one of those folks who thinks that the major labels have dropped the ball (as usual) by not just opening the vaults and making EVERYTHING ever released available once again, at least for download.

Sure, I'd prefer CD, with restored artwork and packaging, but mp3's will do just fine, too. Better than nothing.

So, anyhoo...not to get too far off-topic, I stumbled upon the extended dance mix for "Every Lover's Sign" and wanted to make it available to anyone who digs The Lover Speaks.

For those who aren't familiar with this act, feel free to listen, too. Who knows, you may just be inspired to seek out the group's amazing debut record.

The Lover Speaks - Every Lover's Sign (Extended Dance Mix)

Song of The Weekend: Europeans "The Animal Song"

The year was...1982.

The radio station was...WLAV-FM out of Grand Rapids.

The DJ was...Steve Aldrich, who manned the mic for the supremely awesome late-night Sunday radio show, "Clambake". I have this guy to thank for turning me on to Jesus & Mary Chain, the Chameleons, and a ton of other cool bands while stuck in the musical no man's land that was southern Michigan.

Most importantly, the song was...the Europeans' "The Animal Song".



While I was not your usual lover of 80's novelty fluff, and it would have been very easy to classify this song as such, there was just something about the energy of this tune that made me decide on first listen that I needed to own this song.

Sadly, I did not find much else to like about the band...they didn't suck, but had nothing else up their sleeves that was anywhere near as immediate and catchy.

I will say that the video for this song comes darn close to curing hiccups. Scary.

Europeans - The Animal Song (Cross Country Dance Mix)

EDIT: Due to a couple requests for the entire album, and noticing that it's out-of-print and unavailable (unless you wanna pay $110 on Amazon), here is the Europeans' album, Vocabulary, in its entirety.

Enjoy!

The Animal Song (album version)
A.E.I.O.U.
Voice On The Telephone
American People
Falling
Recognition
Innocence
Spirit Of Youth
Modern Homes
Kingdom Come
Someone's Changing
New Industry

Andy Dick Has A Manager?!

There are very few people in the entertainment biz whose continued employment boggles my mind more than Andy Dick. For as long as I have known of his existence, I have also known of his off-screen shenanigans. Whatever talent he might have has long been overshadowed by his ridiculous exploits.

Yet, time and time again, I continue to see Andy Dick in this show or that, and am occasionally (and quite begrudgingly) reminded that he keeps a fairly busy tour schedule as a comedian. How else would he manage to get himself arrested for dry humping a bouncer in West Virginia, or pissing on the sidewalk in Columbia, Ohio?

Let me ask you, though, who the fuck goes, "Hey, Andy Dick is coming to the Funny Bone next month! I better get me some tickets to that one"? I mean, I've been bored and given the occasional Comedy Central roast a chance to entertain me, only to see Dick making a complete ass of himself in the worst possible way, but I couldn't possibly imagine being bored enough to think that paying to see this guy perform might seem like a fun way to spend an evening.

Ah, but nothing surprises me these days.

I do admit to having one more nagging thought:

I know Hollywood is full of weasels who will do anything for a buck, but who on Earth says to themselves "I want to represent Andy Dick"? I mean, seriously, what person's gag reflex is so lacking in accuracy that they can stomach Andy Dick long enough to deal with him on an almost daily basis?

As his representative, though, it wouldn't stop there.

This person would also be required to do the impossible and speak positively of him to producers and directors in order to secure new roles and appearances. It would also be this person's responsibility to hype Dick's talents throughout the industry, knowing full well that most people on the other end of the phone, or other side of the desk (as the case may be), will be rolling their eyes the whole time.

And, last but not least, this person will be given the responsibility of cleaning up after Dick when he does something stupid.

Notice how I did not say "if" he does something stupid.

Needless to say, this person will have to be damn good at what they do...sell water to a drowning man, if you will. On several occasions, I have wondered if such a person existed.

Of course, this was long before I read the news today and saw that Dick was up to his usual idiotic bullshit, getting arrested on two felony counts of sexual abuse in, of all places, West Virgina,...for sexually assaulting two different guys during an early morning bar blitz.

It was in this article that I finally learned that Andy Dick, in fact, does have a manager and that his name is Michael Green. I can't help wonder what it must have been like to be a young Michael Green, smiling on his elementary school playground, so full of happiness and hope, and dreaming of what he'd be as an adult.

I can't for the life of me imagine a kid who wouldn't want to immediately run out into traffic upon discovering that his adult self was going to grow up to not play baseball, nor be a doctor, but to become the manager of a total no-talent, alcoholic, and sexual deviant by the name of Andy Dick. Mr. Green's mom must be incredibly proud, as must Andy's mom, for that matter.

Who else does Green represent, I wonder...Paula Poundstone? Gary Glitter?

The thing is, in this day and age of there being "no such thing as bad publicity", the jaded part of me can't help but think this will just lead to more notoriety (and, ultimately, more work) for Mr. Dick. And more cash for Mr. Green in the process.

Ah well, there's no business like show business.

The "Slutty Whore" Workout System

Is it just me or have those infomercial folks finally gone nuts?

Over the past couple of weeks I've noticed that a couple fairly new workout products seem to be very penis-related. Seeing as how fat chicks are their primary audience and how it might be hard for a fat chick to get the necessary action to shed those unwanted calories, these products make total sense.

First off, there is the Shake Weight, which is nothing more than a way to give hand jobs without having to buy the poor guy dinner first.



Secondly, the Neckline Slimmer allows really insecure chicks to lose the double-chin by replicating the motions one might make while orally pleasuring a man, but, again, without having to buy some poor guy dinner first.

Can you tell its all about the dinner with me?

As an aside, have you seen the huge fucking noses on the chicks they use in the BEFORE and AFTER photos? Holy Jeemus on a stick.





Now, I have nothing against a chick "boning up" on her hand job and oral gratification skills, but come on. Ten years ago, these would have been SNL spoofs. Sadly, we've degenerated so far as a society that these commercials are not only real, but people are actually buying this shit.

What next, the Cooch Crunch? Or have they already done that?

Adios CoCo!

Okay, let me see if I've got this straight...

Jay Leno quits "The Tonight Show"...willingly...then, as the last days of his tenure approach, decides that he doesn't want to leave.

Despite the fact that he's contractually SOL, NBC, in their infinite "wisdom", decides to give him his own prime-time show.

"The Jay Leno Show" then proceeds to tank in the worst way.

Not wanting to further destroy their prime-time ratings, and rightfully so, NBC decides to cancel "The Jay Leno Show".

Now, see, at this point, having just come off of that disaster, you'd think Jay Leno would respectfully bow out. After all, his new show just bombed and "The Tonight Show" is Conan's baby now.

And NBC would only be all too eager to see Jay drive off the lot for the last time.

But noooooo....

Jay decides he wants to go back to the late night spot.

What's worse is that NBC, instead of telling Jay to hit the fucking bricks, says "Hmm, that's not such a bad idea."

Meanwhile, Conan O'Brien, who moved himself, his family and his staff across the country to do the show, is asked if it would be okay if Jay did his lame-ass schtick, thereby pushing back "The Tonight Show" by thirty minutes.

Never mind that a thirty-minute Jay Leno show is gonna suck (seriously, how many times can you go back to the "small town newspaper ads" well after it runs dry, Jay?), why does NBC continue to bend over backwards for this guy at the expense of their own ratings?

That they so willingly threw Conan under the bus is going to come back and bite them in the ass harder than they could have ever imagined. The thing is, they haven't even imagined such a scenario. They thought "The Jay Leno Show" was going to be the answer to their prime-time prayers. It bombed. In fact, it bombed harder than anyone who thought it was going to bomb could have possibly imagined, which is really saying something.

So, instead of just letting Jay walk, which is the best thing for the network in the long run, they buckled and decided to go back to pretending it is still 1995 and that those jokes were ever funny in the first place.

Instead of giving Conan the time to find his feet and move forward as a network, they willingly let Leno throw his weight around as if he held incriminating photos of Jeff Zucker blowing Andy Dick.

The one good thing to come out of all of this, admittedly, is the fact that Andy Richter's fat puss will no longer be on TV five nights out of the week. If he was half as funny as he thinks he is, he'd be the funniest man on earth. As it stands, he's just the luckiest.

Of course, Zucker's head's gonna roll. How can it not? The dude's a fucking bean counter who sucks at counting beans. He'll be paid well to go away, too, I presume.

Just When We Thought It Could Not Get Any Worser

This morning, I woke up, turned on the news and heard about this little story where the U.S. Supreme Court voted 5-4 to overturn a century-old restriction that prevented corporations from spending money on advertising that would urge the defeat or election of a certain candidate.

The reasoning for this landmark decision is that corporations, like the citizens of this country, have a right to free speech and, thus, should be allowed to spend as much money as they want in hopes of swaying voters, and ultimately influencing the outcome of federal elections.

The willingness with which our government bends over backwards for corporations is sickening enough as it is. The banks know they can continue to come to Washington with their hands out as long as the "We're too big to be allowed to fail" extortion tactics continue to work.

Now the U.S. Supreme Court itself has buckled.

Well, actually, that isn't true. They didn't buckle. They willingly and with great intent have sold out the citizens of this country, saying, in essence, "Yeah, do what you gotta do."

Funny, though, when it comes to giving something back to the American people, what we end up getting is a steaming pile of compromise, with numbers of pasty white politicos taking big bites out of it before it ever gets to us.

Mind you, two significant prohibitions on corporations remain.

1. Corporations, and presumably unions, cannot give money directly to federal candidates. These "contribution" restrictions were not challenged in the case decided today.

2. Federal rules still require the sponsors of political ads to disclose who paid for them.

Based on this new ruling, how long before these restrictions are lifted? You and I both know that this ruling makes it very easy to demolish those two stipulations and that, my friends, is exactly what the powers-that-be have in mind.

This is a huge fucking story, folks. For anyone who may have already feared that we were living in the land of "America, Inc.", your suspicions have been 100% confirmed.

Take special notice at how little mainstream media coverage this story gets over the next few days.

Best Song Title Ever: Samantha Fox "Hurt Me Hurt Me (But The Pants Stay On)"

Let's get one thing straight right off the bat, women run the world and they know it. They hold an amazing amount of power in their...uh...not so much their hands, but a little lower...lower...lower...yeah, right there.

That's why the title of this long-lost Samantha Fox tune has always made me chuckle.

As a young man finding his way in the world, there has been many a time that I've found myself making some serious headway with a lady. Just when I start thinking that paradise is but a snap, button, or clasp away, I feel their hand rush to block my entry to a certain strategic location.

"I'm not ready"...

Are you kidding me? The room looks like a Forever 21 store blew up in it. Your clothing is everywhere. You sure look ready.

"I'm not that kind of girl"...

What kind of girl? The kind that throws up a road block as I'm rounding third base just because your fiancé is in the next room? Your human, I'm human...you want me, I want you...so exactly what kind of girl do you think that makes you?

"An easy girl."

Easy?! If I wanted easy, I could have picked any one of the "village bicycles" my buddies have on speed-dial. I'm not into easy. I'm into you. And if you'd just move your hand, I'd really be into you.

Ah, but I digress...

Song Of The Day: Martin Briley "The Salt In My Tears"

I remember the first time I heard this song and being delightfully stunned by the frankness of that chorus refrain: "But I won't cry for the wasted years/'Cuz you ain't worth the salt in my tears."

Being into UK punk and post-punk, I was used to songs that wore their scathing bitterness on their sleeves. I hadn't expected to hear such sentiment expressed by a mainstream artist, though.

See, while there had always been songs about broken hearts, love gone wrong, and whatnot, very few Top 40 songs at the time spewed any real venom. As a result, Briley's attitude was both stark and refreshing and led to this song becoming his one and only U.S. hit single.

The album on which the song appears, One Night With A Stranger, is actually a really great album, loaded with song after song of relatively accessible rock with deceptively catchy hooks.

I will say that as I listened to "The Salt In My Tears" today, for the first time in quite a while, I never noticed how much the verses sound like latter-day Genesis...falling right in line with tunes like "Misunderstanding" and "Abacab". Of course, Genesis would never go so far as to voice such a wicked sentiment, so praise to Martin Briley for giving the world such a great tune.



While the album is long out-of-print, with used copies fetching over $100, every single track on the album is available on Martin Briley - The Complete Mercury Masters and well worth picking up.


Martin Briley - The Salt In My Tears

Songs of The Day: Dead Or Alive "I'm Falling" and "Number Eleven"

The world obviously knows Dead Or Alive from their brief run of hits in the early-to-mid 1980's - among them "You Spin Me Round (Like A Record)" and "Brand New Lover" - but very few are aware of the band's many indie singles that were released a couple years prior to them becoming MTV video stars.

"I'm Falling" is a song that was recorded in 1980, prior to Burns having put together a stable band line-up.

A year or so later, Dead Or Alive solidified into its first permanent line-up, which included Martin Healey (keys), Steve Coy (drums), guitarist Mike Percy (bass) and Wayne Hussey (guitars). Hussey, of course, would go on to join Sisters of Mercy soonafter, before going on to form The Mission. The first single recorded by this line-up was "Number Eleven". If the tune reminds you a tad of Echo & The Bunnymen, that may because Echo & The Bunnymen producer Ian Broudie (Lightning Seeds) also produced this track.

It wouldn't be long before Burns & Co. began incorporating the ever-popular "disco thud" into their music, making them stars on the dance floor and singles charts, forever leaving behind the atmospheric post-punk sound of their early days.

Revisiting Til Tuesday's "Welcome Home"

Til Tuesday - Welcome Home (1986)

After the success of their debut album, Voices Carry, which spawned the Top 20 hit of the same name, Boston's Til Tuesday was faced with the option of creating a second album that would pick up where their debut left off and solidify their status as MTV hit makers, or, one that might earn them warranted critical respect, but at the expense of all commercial viability.

Til Tuesday chose the latter option, enlisting Roxy Music producer Rhett Davies to man the boards for the sessions. The resulting album, Welcome Home, for all of its aural beauty, hit retail shelves with a resounding thud in the fall of 1986, lacking the .

Whereas the band's debut had been chock full of angsty energy and the sort of lyrical frankness that you just don't expect to find on Top 40 radio (well, at least until Alanis Morissette decided to start setting her diary entries to music), Welcome Home went totally in the opposite direction. On Voices Carry, the wounds seemed so fresh, maybe only minutes old, but Welcome Home showed Mann to have gotten over the heartbreak and was now waving the white flag of quiet resignation.

While nowhere near as immediate as its predecessor, Welcome Home rewards listeners with repeat listens, its understated elegance revealing a wide array of subtle nuances that bubble just beneath the surface.

While songs like "Have Mercy" and "Angels Never Call" seem lighter than air, no heavier than the weight of a single whisper, other tracks, like "Sleeping And Waking", "No One Is Watching You Now", and "Coming Up Close", are both sonically and lyrically stunning.



In a perfect world, such songs would now be considered pop standards, but, as it stands, they remain unknown to all but a chosen few. Despite having created an album of stark, refined genius, you can't help but imagine the looks on the faces of the Epic Records executives upon hearing the completed album for the first time.

"But which song do we release as a single?"

Admittedly, there is not a song on this album that announces itself as a single quite the way "Voices Carry" did, but that doesn't mean there isn't a whole lot to like here. If the band had set out to forever distance themselves from the Men Without Hats and Thompson Twins of the pop world, they succeeded. It is this single by-product of the album's commercial failure that gave Aimee Mann a new lease on life as a solo star. Truth be told, if she and the band had chosen to play the role of pop stars and failed, Mann would have had a much harder time being taken seriously in her post-Til Tuesday recording career.

For fans of Aimee Mann, who look upon her tenure in Til Tuesday with a certain amount of disdain, the songs on Welcome Home do not fall that far outside of the mid-tempo territory Mann has mined with mostly great results as a solo artist. Additionally, Welcome Home is easily one of the best rainy day albums ever made. It is as if Mann and her bandmates wandered around one rainy day with nothing to put on the stereo and decided to make an album that would sound absolutely perfect from start to finish on those most precipitous of days.

Rush Limbaugh Is Kind Of A Jerk

"Yes, I think in the Haiti earthquake, ladies and gentlemen -- in the words of Rahm Emanuel -- we have another crisis simply too good to waste. This will play right into Obama's hands. He's humanitarian, compassionate. They'll use this to burnish their, shall we say, "credibility" with the black community -- in the both light-skinned and dark-skinned black community in this country. It's made-to-order for them. That's why he couldn't wait to get out there, could not wait to get out there." - Rush Limbaugh, Thursday, January 14, 2010

Is anyone really that surprised that Rush Limbaugh is one of the first guys to stick both feet in his mouth regarding the tragedy in Haiti?

Seriously, if they'd been taking bets, my money would have been on Rush all the way. What I've found most revolting about this tragedy is the absolute quickness with which charities, governmental agencies and military support have swung into action for Haiti, but that the same could not be said for our own people when the levees broke in New Orleans.

Did Rush ever criticize Dubya, though? Of course not.

That Rush Limbaugh would choose to consider this event to be nothing more than an opportunity for President Obama to turn a tragedy into a huge political benefit (as if Bush never benefited in any way from 9/11) shows you just where this guy's head is at, doesn't it?

In Limbaugh's mind, there is no sense of humanity, fairness, or kindness without strings attached. Nope, leave it to 'ol Rush to see only the deepest, darkest machinations of man. When tragedy strikes, Rush could put his considerable power to good use, urge people to give all they can, and, in doing so, reveal his own selflessness and strength-of-character. Ah, but that would be too much to ask.

Instead, he chooses to shoot off his mouth and wallow like a pig in his own excrement.

Having chosen to see and report only the most stench-choked side of mankind, he has become Scrooge personified; a self-important, black cloud of a man whose warped worldview is shared by an astonishing number of people who hang upon his every utterance.

Truth be told, if he were to ask his legion of head-bobbing Ditto-Heads to drink the tainted Kool-Aid, these folks would do so without hesitation. That they walk among us, mostly undetected, able to drive, vote and breed keeps me up some nights. The hilarious thing is, they'd all toss back the cup of killer Kool-Aid, swallow it with a smile on their face, and then see their faithful leader standing there with his cup still full, not having taken a single sip.

Free of guilt, he would simply declare that he has no intention of drinking the vile concoction, as it would mean missing out on relishing the looks of absolute horror and betrayal that are washing over the faces of those who trusted in him. He would then blame it on Obama and, with their last dying breaths, the Ditto-Heads would join him in condemnation of our American president.

"When Stages Magazine asked, 'Who do you trust?' readers chose Rush Limbaugh second only to Oprah Winfrey. Rush listeners are generally persons looking for information from someone they have come to know and trust on the airwaves." - from Rush's website.

It is a major human flaw that such misguided trust can be placed by otherwise normal people upon such a delusional, pill-popping scumbag and that every ignorant, ill-informed thing the guy says only furthers his popularity and ensures that his next paycheck is that much larger.

When I was a kid, I honestly believed that adults were intelligent enough to never let this country go down the wrong path, but, as an adult, I have come to the realization that very few people actually care about this country.

They think they do, of course, buying their American flags at Home Depot and displaying them from their front porches two or three days out of the year, but what they really LOVE is bitching about all that is wrong with the country. Long ago, Rush recognized this and capitalized upon it, turning our love for bitching into a career built upon spewing absolutely nothing but garbage to people who are only too happy to have their ears and eyes filled with rubbish.

Over the past few years, I have seen more people than ever before willingly buy into the most pathetic lines of bullshit from the likes of Rush Limbaugh that I have lost complete faith in our ability, or desire for that matter, to fight our way out of a wet paper bag.

Our forefathers fought for what they believed in, they didn't just bitch about what was wrong. Whereas they'd have stuck a fork in Rush the first time he opened his dumb mouth, we've elevated him to media icon, granting him an audience of millions. For a nation that has supposedly come so far in the last two hundred years, we sure have become tolerant of righteous idiocy. Hell, we embrace it.

For, when we see white, there are those like Rush who gluttonously belch, "It's black" and the number of those around me who believe him is frighteningly large. That even one person should buy into his BS is, in and of itself, frightening. The thing is, millions tune in to listen to what this man has to say on a daily basis. He is their god. By them opening their minds to his BS, Rush has become a force that leaves Glenn Beck in utter awe, quivering and fondling himself in complete, mindless reverence.

Granted, Rush is force the way a burrito fart is a force, only 1,000 times more vile and potent. A burrito fart can stop you in your tracks, change your world, make you wish you'd never taken that breath, but, inevitably, it goes away...eventually. Rush, however, has hung poisonously in the air that we breathe for decades, growing larger, fouling the water supply, and causing all sorts of retroactive birth defects in people who come in regular contact with toxic, gaseous cloud that is Rush Limbaugh.

"Excellence In Broadcasting", my ass. Rush is one burrito fart we need to light with a Bic and be done with it.

Suburbs Guitarist Bruce Allen RIP

Considering that the Suburbs are one of my favorite bands, and their self-titled 1986 A&M release one of the most essential albums in my collection, I was saddened today to learn that the band's guitarist Bruce Allen had passed away on December 15.

While the news hit me like a ton of bricks, finding out weeks after the fact was also somewhat infuriating. Rather than focus on that, I'll choose to say a few words about what Bruce and the 'Burbs meant to me.

Were it not for Ira Robbins' awesome rock rag Trouser Press, I'd have not heard about the Suburbs as soon as I did. In addition to raving about their indie Twin/Tone releases, he'd also included one of their songs on a Trouser Press compilation album released on ROIR Records. It was on that tape that I heard "World War III" and became a fan of a little band from Minneapolis called the Suburbs.

A couple years later, the band inked a deal with Mercury and released Love Is The Law, which included the near-hit of the same name. I remember playing the song at a party and seeing the dance floor erupt into full-fledged hyperactive euphoria, everybody's arms and legs flailing.

Considering the fact that only three people in the room knew who the Suburbs were, the fact that "Love Is The Law" connected so immediately with the kids who, mere seconds earlier, had been pestering me with requests for Def Leppard and Loverboy (is it even possible to dance to "Foolin'" or "The Kid Is Hot Tonite"?), I took the response as an indication that the Suburbs would not be my own secret for long. I'd lost other bands to the masses and I looked forward to seeing the same fate bestowed my favorite Minneapolis five-piece.

As anyone familiar with the band knows, such a thing was not to be and the band soon found itself starting from scratch a year or so later.

1986, of course, brought a deal with A&M Records and the release of what would be their last album. Again, song after song of jittery, high-octane pop connected like an adrenaline shot to the heart. Songs like "#9", "Every Night's A Friday Night", and "Want That Girl" were, to my ears, as perfect as radio-ready rock could get. Plus, A&M Records was one of the coolest labels going. Perhaps the stars would finally align for the band.

Yeah, I know, I can be hilariously optimistic at times, but who on earth could have known how promptly this great album would be buried by a label that, to that point, had done very little wrong in my book. Granted, they had parted ways with IRS Records a few years earlier, but I digress.

Even during the band's heyday, Bruce had been a highly respected graphic artist who had not only designed the band's ultra-cool logo, but also the Twin/Tone logo and the album artwork for The Replacements' album,, Let It Be. He continued in that arena long after the Suburbs had called it a day, but had remained musically active. He and the Suburbs had undertaken a number of reunion shows in recent years that proved just how formidable a live act they remained. Sad that only Minneapolis seemed to truly "get" what this great band was all about.

While I exchanged emails with Bruce some years back, I never got to meet him. I did, however, get to tell him just how much his music means to me. After my first email to him brought no immediate response, I feared that perhaps I had come off like a bit of a stalker and sent a second message apologizing profusely for coming on too strong. He responded within minutes, saying, "No, it was great. So many questions, though. I'm still trying to answer them all."

A few days later came an email wherein he answered every question I had posed to him, going into candid detail about the band and their experiences over the years. While he and the band had certainly not reached the heights they (and I) had envisioned, he was quite happy with the knowledge that there were people the world over who loved the band. To have created something out of thin air that connected with people he'd not yet had the chance to meet was an amazing thing, he explained, and made all of the effort worthwhile.

I don't really know what else to say, or how to wrap this up in a manner that Bruce deserves. I guess I will just say that my musical world shrunk a bit on December 15 and I am only now realizing why. Rest in peace, Bruce.

Nada Surf Spring Tour - Tix Go On Sale Tomorrow (Wednesday) January 6

Just a note to those who may be interested and do not already have their happy face on...

Nada Surf embark on a string of US dates in March, running through May. The first three shows, all in the NYC area, will see the band perform one album in its entirety each night. The three albums to be featured are Let Go, The Weight Is The Gift, and Lucky. Tickets go on sale tomorrow, Wednesday, January 6th.

Click HERE for more details.

Additionally, the band will be selling a new covers-only CD at the shows entitled, If I Had A Hi-Fi.

Y Kant Tori Re-Issue This One?

One of the few by-products of being signed to a label is that, well, you get free copies of all of the other releases by said label. If it wasn't for that, the truth is that I would have never known the album Y Kant Tori Read even existed. The album was seemingly released and swept under the carpet in the span of five minutes, never to be seen (by my eyes, at least) on a single record store shelf.

Every couple weeks or so, I would get a package of cassettes of upcoming WEA releases, but most were from neo-soul or nu jack funk acts and, thus, went straight into the trash. Others seemed to defy easy classification by glancing at the cover art and, thus, also went into the circular file. And yet a special chosen few seemed so odd that I just had to give them a listen; my morbid curiosity getting the better of me. Y Kant Tori Read was one such album that fell into this latter category.

I can still recall gazing at the album cover, taking in what I perceived to be a ginger-haired metal goddess. Add in a couple intentional misspellings in the name and you have all the makings of an album tailor-made for the banging of thy head. Or so I thought.

What I heard could not have been any further from my expectations. It was big and bombastic, full of venom, passion and grit, but it wasn't metal.

"Someone smashed my window, broke into my brand new car last night/Caught my boyfriend looking at another slender pair of thighs..."

Such lyrics may not have been too far removed from your typical Lita Ford album of the day, but there was something about that voice. By the time Y Kant Tori Read hit the chorus of "The Big Picture", her vocals soaring effortlessly above the pre-programmed synths and drum machines, I was in, baby.

With each song after that, traces of a voice that was much more expressive and refined than your average chick singer began to reveal themselves. "Cool On Your Island", for example, shimmers with a slyly cynical vocal bursting with more exasperation than desperation. In the hands of a lesser singer, lines like "If you don't treat me better/Baby, I'll just run away" would just fall flat, unnoticed. In Tori's, the message is received loud and clear.

"Fayth", of course, is one of those neo-jazz funk tunes that I have tried long and hard to block out of my memories of the late 80's. One is left to surmise that it, more than any other song on the album, is cause for the singer to have quickly washed her hands of the whole thing. Still, it is not without its charms, and a catchy-as-hell chorus to boot.

The one song on the album that most resonated with me was the riveting "Heart Attack At 23", which begins with a simple piano coda and sung-spoken vocal before the requisite synth-bass and drums come in. Tori's double-tracked vocals bring a certain necessary calamity to the chorus, driving home the point that messing with the wrong guy can do a number on a young girl's ticker. While I could have done without the sax solo and the soulful male backing vocals, the tune sounded great in the car when cranked to eleven.


[yep, that The Cult/Guns 'n' Roses/Velvet Revolver drummer Matt Sorum, second from left]

But who the heck was this singer? My promo cassette, as usual, was no help at all. Sure, it had a pic of the album cover, but absolutely no credits or liner notes. Argh!

Of course, I (and those who were unfortunate enough to be caught in the same car with me during the few months in 1988 when this album did not leave my tape player) seemed to be the only one who noticed. As alluded to earlier, I never saw the album in a single store and just figured I'd never hear from the band (or anyone in it) ever again.

Imagine my surprise a couple years later, when a new singer by the name of Tori Amos happened upon the scene with a great debut album called Little Earthquakes. Truth be told, even after I had bought the album, I still didn't connect the dots. It took an interview in some long-forgotten magazine where Tori admitted she'd put out a "dreadful" album a couple years earlier under a different name. The magazine went so far as toi include a pic of that album's cover and my jaw dropped.

Holy crap, it was her!

In giving Y Kant Tori Read a comparative listen, a song like "Fire On The Side" would not have sounded at all out-of-place on Little Earthquakes. Chock full of the glistening piano and tormented lyrical asides that have marked much of her best solo work, the song is an absolute gem.

Y Kant Tori Read, for all of its musical contrivances, is still actually a pretty nice little record that Amos has obviously felt should remain buried (otherwise, it would have seen a proper re-release by now). Maybe some day, she'll give it another listen and, this time, be a little more forgiving of herself. If nothing else, her boundless ambition and ability to sing the hell out of every song makes it an album that's virtually impossible not to like.

The Big Picture
Cool On Your Island
Fayth
Fire On The Side
Pirates
Floating City
Heart Attack At 23
On The Boundary
You Go To My Head
Etiene Trilogy