The Music of 1979-1980

In our efforts to make music matter again in our lives (see Making Music Matter, part 1 and part 2), a few friends and I met at Kevin’s “Wall of Sound” basement in Wisconsin to play and discuss music from the golden years of 1979-1980, and the results were even more brilliant than I had expected.  What a incredible two year period, when hard rock, punk, new wave, soul, arena rock, fusion, prog rock, folk rock and every other kind of rock you can slap a label on converged for a perfect period of music proliferation.  And get this – most of it was actually played on the radio back in the day!  Crazy times.  1979-1980 might be the strongest two years in my book.  What about yours?

Here’s the list in all its glory – probably close to six hours of music.  It should be noted that music selections were viewed through the lenses of white suburban men who were once white suburban boys.  Notably absent are artists like Kool and the Gang, Isaac Hayes, Donna Summers, Earth Wind and Fire, etc.  We are worse for it.

The Knack – Good Girls Don’t

The Knack – Let me Out

The Police – Bombs Away

The Romantics – Tom Boy

Off Broadway – Bad Indication

Nick Lowe – Switch Board Susan

Roxy Music – Over You

Billy Thorpe – Dream Maker (this is not a good song, but was used to stump Kevin.  It was not successful).

Billy Thorpe – Children of the Sun

Jeff Beck (with Jan Hammer) – Star Cycle

Donny Iris – She’s So Wild (also used to stump Kevin.  This one was successful!)

Donny Iris – Ah!  Leah!

OMD – Red Frame/White Light

Pete Townsend – Let My Love Open the Door

Pete Townsend – And I Moved

Led Zeppelin – I’m Gonna Crawl

Blondie – Union City Blue

Ian McLagan – La De Da (this stumped everyone)

Alan Parsons Project – Snake Eyes

Fleetwood Mac – Brown Eyes

Talking Heads – Air

Rolling Stones – Emotional Rescue

Paul McCartney – So Glad to See You

Joy Division – Love Will Tear Us Apart

Jackson Browne – Boulevard

The Kinks – Moving Pictures

Queen – Don’t Try Suicide

The Police – Reggatta De Blanc

The Cars – Let’s Go

Cheap Trick – Dream Police

Yes – Does is Really Happen

John Cougar – Ain’t Even Done with the Night

Bruce Springsteen – Point Blank

Bruce Springsteen – Cadillac Ranch

The Pretenders – Precious

Supertramp – Child of Vision

Bob Welsh – Precious Love

Rush – Free Will

AC/DC – Shot Down in Flames

Generation X – Kiss Me Deadly

The Kings – Partyitis

The Kinds – This Beat Goes On/Switchin’ To Glide

Neil Young – Powder Finger

U2 – A Day Without Me

U2 – I Will Follow

Rickie Lee Jones – Danny’s All-Star Joint

Bob Dylan – Gotta Serve Somebody

Steely Dan – Gaucho

Dr. Hook – Sexy Eyes

REO Speedwagon – Don’t Let Him Go

Yipes – Out in California

The Eagles – In the City

Head East – It’s Got to be Real

The Clash – Lost in the Supermarket

The Damned – Jet Boy, Jet Girl

Joe Jackson – On the Radio

Van Halen – D.O.A.

Journey – Too Late

Kansas – Hold On

Genesis – Turn it on Again

Talking Heads – Once in a Lifetime

Tom Petty – Even the Losers

Elvis Costello – Senior Service

Joan Jett – Bad Reputation

Aretha Franklin – Think

Aerosmith – Three Mile Smile

Aerosmith – No Surprise

Al Stewart – Midnight Rocks

Muppets – Rainbow Connection

Peter Gabriel – No Self Control

Elton John – Little Jeanie

Not too shabby a list!  And we didn’t even touch Pink Floyd, Billy Joel, Prince, The B-52s, Michael Jackson, Graham Parker, Robert Palmer, Santana, Kiss, ELO, Chaka Kahn, Pat Benatar, Dire Straits, ZZ Top, Toto, Styx, etc.

Tell me a two year period that’s better.  There might be!

The Ryan Braun Debacle

As a lifetime Brewer fan and – until recently – a defender of Ryan Braun’s (yes, I was taken in by the ferocity of his public statement in February of 2012 .  Call me an idiot, or, in the immortal words of Bugs Bunny, “What a gull-a-bull.  What a nin-cow-poop.”), I feel compelled to comment on the unfortunate situation the smallest metropolitan market in Major League Baseball now has to endure.

In early 2004, after Paul Molitor was elected to enter the Baseball Hall of Fame, and as the Brewers were limping along to win about 67 games a season, a friend of mine wrote: “THE BREWERS WILL NEVER HAVE MORE THAN 2 PLAYERS IN THE BASEBALL HALL OF FAME! EVER! THAT SUCKS!”  And it was hard to argue with this sentiment.  The Crew as a franchise was pathetic.  They hadn’t finished above .500 since 1992, the year after which – by the way – the let said future hall-of-famer Molitor flee to the Blue Jays by offering him – get this – a pay cut of $900,000 (in pure stupidity, Sal Bando’s legacy in Milwaukee exceeds that of even Ernie Grunfeld, who let Ray Allen get away from the Bucks in 2003).

In short, there was little reason to be optimistic for baseball in Milwaukee.

And then…

In 2005, a 21 year-old who was blasted in Michael Lewis’s book Moneyball two years earlier, took his first at-bat as a major-leaguer.  Prince Fielder started making waves, and not just on his sizable gut.  This kid could hit.  Two years later, Ryan Braun entered the picture, and suddenly, the idea of the Brewers having a winning season and – dare we jump the gun just a bit too quickly – a future hall-of-famer – didn’t seem so farfetched.

Fielder played six spectacular seasons for the Brewers and – baring a complete collapse of his skills – is a shoo-in at Cooperstown.  But if that day ever comes, he’ll likely go in as a Tiger, not as a Brewer.  Oh well.  It was still fun while it lasted (and honestly, the Brewers may have the last laugh when the Tigers pay a 36 year-old Fielder $24 million in 2020).   Fielder helped propel the Brewers into the playoffs in 2008 and 2011, and though he rejected a long-term contract with Milwaukee, fans can look back on his stint with fondness.

Braun did something no one expected.  He decided to be The Man, the franchise players on a small-market team, taking less money than he could make elsewhere.  In 2011 he signed a five-year extension on his contract, keeping him in Milwaukee through the 2020 season.  It was a dream come true for Brewer fans.  Finally, FINALLY, someone decided to take the high road.  After enduring a host of other players rejecting long-term offers from the Crew, Milwaukee fans found someone who actually chose to stay with the Brewers.  Sure, he’d make a little less money than he would with the Yankees or the Red Sox, but he’d be the biggest guy in town – something impossible on a large-market team.  He’d open a few restaurants with another franchise player from a small-market team, Aaron Rogers, and life would be great.

Which is why the recent scandal is so monstrously unfair.  Finally a small market team reels in the perfect player with the perfect contract, only to find out that they were sold a bill of goods.  In 2011, just eighteen games into the season, Braun said, "I truly believe I can get much better as a player.  These first 18 games are probably the best baseball I've played in my career and I really believe that's a sign of things to come."

Well, sure.  He was cheating!  Of course it was a sign of things to come.  Why contracts don’t have a clause that immediately makes them null and void if a player gets suspended is mind-boggling to me.  But there you have it.  Now the Brewers are stuck with a pathetic human being, and – very possibly – a mediocre ball-player for the next seven seasons, an eternity in baseball.  The Brewers will have to pay Braun a total of $117 million.  This for a team whose total payroll in 2012 was $88 million.

What’s worse is that Milwaukee fans, who’ve had so little to celebrate these past thirty years, will no longer be able to look back on 2011 with any pride.  The Brewers’ first division title in 29 years was a lie.  The Brewers’ first MVP in 29 years was a lie.  Braun hit .500 in the NLDS.  If I were a Diamondback fan, I’d be fuming (Arizona manager Kirk Gibson is, and I don’t blame him).

Of course, Matt Kemp has a few reasons to be ticked off as well, having lost the MVP ballot to a cheater.

And not just a cheater, but a liar.  A man willing to hurt other people’s reputations to further his own career.  No one is perfect, but not everyone stoops to such inordinate lows as Braun has.  And to play the Jew Card – accussing urine-collector Dino Laurenzi Jr of anti-Semitism (if the report is true) – is lower than the depths of any athlete I can think of, including A-Rod. 

New York fans may be used to this sort of thing, but Milwaukee fans won’t be quick to forgive.  Many may not even return to Miller Park until Braun is gone.  If there’s a team willing to take on $117 million of tarnished goods, I’m sure Brewer GM Doug Melvin is all ears.  Perhaps Braun can take part in this year’s High Holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.  After all, he won’t be playing baseball, so he has no excuse not to participate in beginning the long, hard, arduous journey of contrition and, ultimately – if he’s very lucky – redemption.

The Sorry State of Broadway

Waiting among thousands for the Broadway in Chicago Summer Concert at Millennium Park last week, I scanned the ten shows that were to be reviewed that evening and couldn’t believe how utterly lame Broadway has become.  Of the ten shows, there wasn’t one fully original production.  Not one.  Instead, we were treated to the equivalent of a classic rock band, feeding on the familiar, with not one surprise in the lot.

Here’s the breakdown:

Continuing the trend that was perfected in the 90s, five of the musicals are based on movies: Once, Ghost, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Elf and Flashdance.

Three shows are showcases of already-familiar music: We Will Rock You, Motown and Million Dollar Quartet.

Two of the shows are productions of shows that are at least ten years old: Wicked and Evita.

There you have it. 

This is hardly a new phenomenon on Broadway.  For over twenty years now, the high cost of musical flops have spurred producers to rely on a built-in audience, spawning shows such as the Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, Big, The Producers, Spamalot, Billy Elliot, The Adam’s Family, etc.  This year, all four nominees for best musical were based on movies: winner Kinky Boots, Matilda, A Christmas Story and Bring it On.  But hey, at least these musicals had some original music.  More and more, there are the jukebox musicals, showcasing music the audience is already familiar with.  Building off the success of Mama Mia and Jersey Boys, musical lovers have been bombarded with these types of productions in recent years: Movin’ Out, All Shook Up, Ring of Fire, Rock of Ages, etc.

As for Evita and Wicked, both are both original shows that were phenomenally successful.  Kudos to Stephen Schwartz and the writing due of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice.  Can you write something new now?

I wondered if perhaps the city of Chicago didn’t compare to the originality showcased in New York, but shows currently running (or soon to be running) in the Big Apple are the following:

Annie, Big Fish, The Bridges of Madison County, Bullets over Broadway, Cinderella, Chicago, Jersey Boys, Kinky Boots, Les Miserables, The Lion King, Mama Mia, Matilda, Motown, Newsies, Once, The Phantom of the Opera, Rock of Ages, Rocky (seriously) and Wicked.

Shows like this year’s best musical winner, Kinky Boots, and Big Fish, should perhaps get a free pass, because they’re not based on a blockbuster movie, and therefore are produced not with a built-in audience in mind, but with the thought that the musical will be more successful than the film.  In a sense, this is no different than if the musical had been based on a book.  I saw Big Fish last spring in Chicago, and am hopeful that it generates an interest in Manhattan (see my review).   But the likes of 2011 winner The Book of Mormon and 2008 winner In the Heights are all too rare.  

When will Broadway begin to wag the dog of Hollywood instead of dutifully following its master?

The Tale of the Tape

I own a tape deck, a turntable and a VCR (and I’ve used two within the last week!), but even I had to do a double take at Time’s one-page feature this week on the resurgence of cassette tapes.  It seems that sales are up for both blank and re-recorded tapes, a surprising phenomenon given the digital revolution and the fact that even back in the day pre-recorded cassette tapes were the butt of jokes just shy of those for the 8-track.  Store-bought cassettes, it was widely known, were recorded on poor quality tapes that never sounded right on a good cassette deck.  The high ends were particularly bad and the overall sound couldn’t compare with that of LPs or CDs.  When I worked at a record store (remember those?) in 1991-1992, we sold thousands tapes, including a ridiculous number of cassette singles, and I couldn’t believe how many people were willing to shell out cash for such an inferior medium. 

Now I learn that new albums are being released on cassette and the collection of old tapes is gaining steam.  I truly didn’t see this coming.  Not two years ago, I finally decided that my studio needed to be freed of the cassette tapes that were mucking up coveted shelf-space and discarded several dozen.  Some were old store-bought tapes that my wife had accumulated, but most were Maxell XLII tapes of albums I’d collected over the years.  The thought that I could possibly sell these, or even find a home for them, was beyond comprehension.

Tapes were ubiquitous in the 70s and 80s.  For Christmas in 1978, I received a cheap cassette deck with a built-in microphone that my friends and I used it to record skits, but it was my brother’s purchase of a high-quality tape-deck that spurred daily recordings, be it songs off the radio, my own compositions, or copies of my LPs.  As soon as I purchased a vinyl LP, I transferred it onto tape in order to preserve the vinyl copy as well as have a more portable medium to play in the car.  So now if I play, say, my vinyl copy of Yes’s Going for the One, it should sound pristine, as it probably hasn’t been played more than twice since I purchased it. 

Maxell XLII was the tape of choice among my friends in the 80s, though some opted to pay the extra cash for the XLII-S.  Currently, in my now sparse collection of old tapes, I find I’ve got some of both.  The 90 minute tape was the norm, which was usually perfect because you could fit an album on each side, but some albums required a few extra minutes.  Hence, the 100 minute tape.  Genesis albums were the worst.  You could purchase a 100 minute tape, but even then you’d have to skip a track to fit, say, A Trick of the Tale onto one side. 

Aside from recording one’s own LPs, there were concerts to record off of Sunday night’s King Biscuit Flower Hour or interviews off of Monday night’s Rockline (which, I’ve come to learn, it still going strong after 32 years.  Nice!).  More important were the recordings shared between friends.  An old girlfriend made me a concert tape of Bruce Springsteen’s second night at Alpine Valley in 1984, a particularly cool memento given that I’d attended the concert the day before.  Other friends of mine made me mix tapes, exposing me to terrific bands and recordings I would have never heard on my own (Cracker’s version of the Carpenter’s song, “Rainy Days and Mondays”?  Fantastic!).  These, I haven’t the heart to get rid of.  I still have a box of cassettes, including many recordings of my own compositions in the 1980s and several copies of my first two albums, Meals and Ulcers (1992) and Rocks Off On Humboldt (1996).

And even though I don’t have copies of the mix tapes I gave to potential girlfriends, I like to think that scattered amongst the attics of the United States, these tapes still exist, little fragments of a guy with hopes that the beautiful female specimen might look at him in a different light.

One mix tape hit pay-dirt. 

I still have the tape I made for my future wife in 1993 when she was just a hope.  Looking at it now, I wonder why the hell I didn’t include more selections from the very solid year of 1992.  Where is the REM?  Peter Gabriel?  Lemonheads?  XTC?  But oh well.  It’s a little snapshot of a lovesick boy.  And it got the job done.

“A WONDERFUL LITTLE MIX”

Side A

These are Days – 10,000 Maniacs

Loveable – Elvis Costello

Under African Skies – Paul Simon

Big Yellow Taxi – Joni Mitchell

Be My Number Two – Joe Jackson

Chuck E.’s In Love – Rickie Lee Jones

Oh Daddy – Adrian Belew

Sail Away – Randy Newman

High Flying Bird – Elton John

Saturday – The Judy Bats

Don’t Get Me Wrong – The Pretenders

Umbrella – Innocence Mission

Taking My Life In Your Hands – Elvis Costello

Earn Enough for Us – XTC

It’s My Job – Jimmy Buffett

Side B

Late in the Evening – Paul Simon

Candy Everybody Wants – 10,000 Maniacs

The Woman’s Work – Kate Bush

Showdown at Big Sky – Robbie Robertson

Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters – Elton John

Real Emotional Girl – Randy Newman

The Greatest Thing – Elvis Costello

Stranger than Fiction – Joe Jackson

The Wonder of Birds – The Innocence Mission

She’s Mad – David Byrne

Selections from Randy Newman’s score to the movie Avalon.