“I never forgave Alan Marshall after that, or Cab Calloway, either, for saying the shit that he said in that article. Those things cost us all pain and suffering. A lot of people he talked about never recovered from what he said, because he was very popular back then and everybody listened to what he said.”
-Miles Davis on Cab Calloway
Man! What a quote! Not really, though. It’s not that important, but it does fit this occasion. And this occasion is all that matters. I’m reading Miles by Miles Davis. My big post on it is soon to come, and let me tell you, that shit is a motherfucker. Miles hated Cab Calloway because he thought he was an Uncle Tom- smiling and bending over for the white folks- the same thing he thought about Louis Armstrong and to some small extent, his friend Dizzy.
Miles from the grave is turning me onto all sorts of new, to me, shit. One thing I found while I was checking out people he talks about (to get their side, too maybe) was this dictionary. Cab Calloway calls it the Hepster’s Dictionary and it’s fucking interesting. Miles explains a lot of these words in the book, too, but some are weird as hell. For a white motherfucker like myself, I should probably stay away, but I can’t help it.
So don’t be an icky, this is solid murder for those fuckos who like gut-bucket sounds. Alright, fucko is my word, but I’m bringing it all together. I’m bringing it all together and stomping on graves in the process. Or dancing. Maybe a little bit of both, the times have changed.
The previous parts to this project were mostly about pulling apart what other people said about fIREHOSE the band and the fIREHOSE albums. My opinions, although mostly positive, were based off of putting others down. To be more constructive, I decided to venture to the heart of the album and to the heart of its creators.
I found a Crawford, E in Pittsburgh, PA in the White Pages. I wrote a bunch of questions about everything from getting input into the Watt and Hurley machine, his new power trio in Pittsburgh, Pirates fan? Penguins fan? Steelers fan? I got my wiretapping device all hooked up and I called. Here’s a transcription.
SWR: Hi, is Ed there?
Woman: Who?
SWR: I’m looking for Ed Crawford.
Woman: He doesn’t live here.
SWR: Oh. Sorry.
Feeling defeated, I sent out a bunch of e-mails to variations of Gmail users with the words ED CRAWFORD FROM OHIO. I put periods all over the place. I had dashes. Some came back as MAILER DAEMON, and I got 2 responses from Eds who weren’t the EdFROMOHIO, just Eds that either had the last name Crawford or were Eds not named Crawford but happened to live in Ohio. One guy told me to ask Watt for Crawford’s information. I did that, but haven’t heard back yet. Now I’m realizing Crawford’s new power trio doesn’t even have a website or MySpace so how inclined is he to have a Gmail account? He probably has Hotmail or AOL or something equally ancient. Dammit.
In the spirit of Crawford, I should have bought a car, packed up my shit and drove to Pittsburgh and knocked on Ed’s door. But I don’t have a car or money for a car. Well, that’s how it goes.
To leave you with something rather than nothing, here’s a piece of a Mike Watt interview from April 2009. I asked him why he decided to record his 3rd rock opera in Brooklyn.
MIKE WATT:
I thought the best way to prac, I mean you can prac in a prac pad, but you play in front of people that’s the most intense prac (laughing)
So that was the idea.
Make the album in the middle of a tour.
I did that once with fIREHOSE. The 3rd album FROMOHIO, we made it in Ohio in the middle of the tour.
Maybe try that idea with Tony Studio G boss…
used to be the Bass player from Pere Ubu.
A huge influence on me, me and D Boon saw Pere Ubu in 77…78 at the Whiskey, it was a mind blow of a gig for us, man it was a trip.
Thanks Watt.
So there’s another reason it’s called FROMOHIO. The album is actually FROM OHIO, not just Ed Crawford.
My quick spiel on the album:
The lyrics on “Softest Hammer” are some of my favorite Mike Watt lyrics of all time. I love hearing him do backup, or co-vocals with Crawford singing “IT’S ED FROM OHIO!” I think this is the best closing track to any of the fIREHOSE albums. On the whole, the album doesn’t grab me by the throat like Ragin‘ or soothe my fear and disillusionment like If’n, but a good album. “Whisperin While Hollerin’” is one of my favorite Watt tracks and Crawford’s own take on Elizabeth Cotton’s take on “Vastopol” is great. Hurley gets 2 drum tracks, a couple of interesting curveballs and more proof that fIREHOSE like the Minutemen were truly democratic. Mike Watt has the Walt Whitman democratic soul.
According to Jargon Database, which is a cool site, Vastopol means
Open D tuning for a guitar. Supposedly it’s the name when Russian Sailors from the Black Sea city of Sevatopol were in port in New Orleans and the sailors had a guitar tuned this way.
Done. I think I’ll do Flyin’ the Flannel in haiku.
I was sitting in the back of McShane’s car going to see Mission of Burma or going to band prac. I can’t remember which. After bashing Rolling Stone together, Mike asked me if I could write for them, would I? I said I couldn’t write for Rolling Stone because I was too angry not to mention having little abilities as a proper journalist, but now I’m rethinking it. Fuck that shit! I’ve got a keyboard and if that fails, I’ve got pencils and paper. I can write! Or at least out of the lack, I’ll make my song.
Mike: But what if they WOULD publish your stuff? Would you do it?
Me: Fuck yea. I’d love to have a column. I’d call it FUCKO and I’d rant about all the shit that pisses me off. I’d do it under the disguise of albums reviews for the week and I won’t pull any of that clever antiquing bullshit like David Fricke
Now why would anyone write a blog just to get pissed off? Well, 99% of my posts have been positive on this site. Writing about music I like rather than bashing music that has failed me or the human race. It’s pathetic to have a blog just to get angry about stupid shit like the Grammys or Rolling Stone. Unfortunately, that 1% is what killed Jay Reatard, sorry Reatard fans but I stand by my review of Watch Me Fall. So now, I’m going to expand that 1% into something more edible, like 5% or maybe a solid 7. I think the negative should complement the positive and so on and so forth. This is a shitty world, let’s not hide behind Volcano Suns reissues. It’s good to listen to what you presuppose you hate. Who knows? Maybe I’ll end up liking some of it.
So I spent today listening to an album that made every top ten list of any publication that would want to be called cool: It’s Blitz by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
I thought this was a garage rock band. This is not what I expected. And based on a lot of reviews, most people seemed surprised as well. They dropped all guitars for a kindergarten Nine Inch Nails sound. While I admire breaking your own mold, these songs are even less interesting than when they had guitars. The beats are formulaic dance beats that do nothing to improve the song it’s added to. There’s not even an attempt to change them into something worthwhile and interesting. Since I know practically nothing about this, let’s talk about something that I know even less about and bugged me throughout the album: Karen O’s singing.
I don’t believe her.
Off with your head
Dance ’til you’re dead
Heads will roll
On the floor
That’s the way I judge singers. I’m no expert on singing and tone and all that, I just read lyrics and listen to the person singing it and if they truly mean it, regardless of what it’s about, that’s good singing. The above lyrics from “Heads Will Roll” are pretty good. It fits with the theme of this album (at least for the louder songs), which I believe is DANCE AND LOOK COOL rather than ROCK OUT AND LOOK COOL of previous efforts. At least on “Zero,” the opening track, I believe her. She’s stuck up. I can hear her holier-than-thou tone when she sings
Your zero
What’s your name?
No one’s gonna ask you
Better find out where they want you to go
I can hear her saying that exact thing at a party to someone who doesn’t have as cool a haircut as her. Then she laughs hysterically and starts talking about how much she loves New Order more than Joy Division while nursing a Red Stripe. At least I believe her. OK, let’s not get mean.
Being unimpressed with the machine-made dance songs (there are more: “Shame and Fortune” adds guitars but still fails when the overused siren synth takes over, “Dragon Queen” is a retarded Wu-Tang beat that only makes me want to listen to GZA instead of Karen O whispering and clapping), for this album to make everyone’s top ten list, the album must succeed on the softer songs. Critics have argued the soft Yeah Yeah Yeah’s songs are the best the band has ever composed. One is track 4, “Skeleton.” Karen O sounds like a liar. She’s singing about love and her carefully conceived pauses and inflections for the words “Spin the sky Ske le ton me” ruin any chance of me buying into this. The Celtic tune at the end is laughable. An album that already sounds like more machine than man becomes laughable. While masters like Trent Reznor and newbies like Death From Above 1979 give life to their machines, the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s bring us back to the hollow synth mainstream of the 80s. And it’s unfortunate because the simple words “Skeleton Me” might be the best lyrics on the album.
“Runaway” may be the only song on the album worth saving, and only the first half is genuine. She sounds like she may have a soul, but then the song loses me when she once again aims for style over substance. The strings at the end don’t succeed in turning this “album turning point” into anything epic. Rather, they reveal to us how hollow the synth and restrained yelping actually are.
I could have supposed a few reasons why I wouldn’t like this album before ever listening to it, but never did I think it would be Karen O’s intensity. For all my hatred, I thought she was energetic and soulful, just misguided. This is not the case on It’s Blitz. I switched over to the Where the Wild Things Are soundtrack to see if maybe everything she does lately is as empty as this. It’s not. I hated most of the music while watching the film, but listening to it now, there are a lot of good songs. “Hideaway” is a great song. I believe her. She sings like she’s not carefully manipulating every inflection. There are no intentional awkward pauses in her speech. There’s nothing premeditated in her style. The fun songs are fun. Her yelping is honest and she doesn’t have to sing about dancing to imagine her doing so.
The opening song to the movie, “Igloo,” has more feeling than the It’s Blitz soft songs and she doesn’t even sing any lyrics, she just hums. Listening in comparison, the Karen O and the Kids soundtrack is great. It’s inventive. It’s almost untraceable. It sounds like music that this generation should be making in the 21st Century instead of some manipulated retro bullshit with less soul than James Brown’s dead finger.
I’m worried about us. If this is genuinely good music, who’s to say in 10 years the “new” sound from the underground will be Nu-Metal redu. I’m worried about critics and their souls. I’m worried about children and their hearts. I don’t blame the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, just fucking you, you stupid motherfuckers.
I don’t even know how to begin to explain to you what those above pictures are. I think this is the best movie ever made. It’s called Logorama and I found out about it because of the Academy Awards. Fuckin A, right? It was nominated for best short animated film. Directed by French animation group H5 and yea, it’s America bashing. The W at the end is a little too much, but watching Ronald McDonald shoot the Michelin Man in the head makes up for that. Here it is below for your enjoyment.
Watch it here. Now!
Oh. Umm. To make it about music, the last song is by the Ink Spots. It’s a song called “I Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire.” It’s very good. Yep.
Also- The 2nd time I watched it, I paused it about every 5 seconds to see what I could find. See if you can find an Empire Strikes Back logo, a Cleveland Indian and although not a fan, an American Idiot album cover.
Also Also- I like the nod to Shepard Fairey’s OBEY poster. I wonder if there’s any Ron English nods. I think I’ll have to watch it a 3rd time, thought turning Ronald McDonald into something he ain’t is kinda Ron English already.
If’n I list’n to critics, it’s with a fucking pound of salt. Actually, more like a mound of salt and I got one up the street from me where the Parks Department keeps all its street salt for the Bronx. I think the expression needs grain because it implies it’s meaningless, but fuck, even that 2-story mound of salt doesn’t mean shit to me. Alright, brevity! The crickets say this is the fIREHOSE album where they came into their own, became “more cohesive and focused,” (Greg Prato from Allmusic.com) “their own thing,” and a blog I like (From Here To Obscurity) says “more personal, a little less political, but still funny and insightful.” I disagree with all that bull. I don’t think you can top how personal Watt gets on Ragin’ Full On. It’s uncomfortable how personal some of it is. If I had to describe it quickly, I’d say If’n, yes, shows a band that has figured out their sound, but its more about having fun (Which Obscurity says partly).
Now this is unfounded, but I get the feeling they made this album when they consciously or unconsciously decided this was going to be a band that would stick around. It wasn’t just something to do or an escape or for two of ‘em walkin into a band as a band member zombies ‘cus that’s what they had been doin hardcore for 5 years and they got used to it. Because of this decision, I think they took a deep deep breath and thought, really fuckin thought about how to mix up the whole rock roll drum/guitar/bass/vox thing, something I fear most bands don’t do because they are organic and run with the flow etc. etc. but Watt, as much as he is a dude who does go with the flow, in music he’s going against. Fuck with yer brain, get you thinkin, that’s the Watt way from my perspective.
Fun. If’n reeks of fun. Seeing the band tour these songs must have been awesome. From the Crawford penned “Sometimes” the happy way of singing the upbeat “Anger,” this is an album for good moods. While Ragin’ might be used if you are dealin with some shit and need to let loose, If’n is more for hangin’ out in the summer. Driving music? Maybe. This goes along with the album art. As opposed to the Ragin’ cover of a house burnin (which you could say it how Watt and Hurley must have felt like after D.’s death- the Minutemen house burnt to the ground), If’n’s got a cover of a bedroom wall(?) with some weird ass statue and a poster of Husker Du with Bob Mould smiling ear to ear. Instead of smeltin metal for chemical wires, we’re windmilling!
Less uniform than Ragin, but Watt’s never been about uniforms so why should I expect one here. What I mean is Ragin’ doesn’t have as many curveballs as If’n tho it’s still hits high and low peaks most bands above or under ground would not dare touch. Here’s what I mean: after the trippy “Me and you remembering” Watt-spiel, we get a folk Ed tribute to Elizabeth Cotton then a more traditional power trio rock song with Ed singin called “Soon.” When that wraps up the last song churns on and its “Thunder Child,” obviously a bass/tom heavy song and it’s got Watt growlin his best Beefheart growl. Man, forget the uniform, this album’s made of clothes from the 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s and even the goddam future. There ain’t the rhyme and reason you got on Ragin’ and even that was a little hard to swallow. In it’s categorizing ability, I’d call this the Trout Mask to Ragin’s Safe as Milk. Now, we’re all friends here so don’t take that the wrong way, fire or beef fans. It’s not insulting to either, rather it enhances each. Meaning through comparisons, like on the SATs because you all know how much I value standardized tests. Just fill in C and fill it in good. You’ll get a 20%, but at least yer consistent.
So say you were really into R.E.M. and you picked up a tape of Document and saw fIREHOSE and saw there was even a song for the singer of R.E.M. and you heard “Sometimes” played by the one good DJ at the college radio station so you buy it. I say you went home and put that on and checked out completely at “Making the Freeway” on side A. So turn it over to get the REM song and it sounds good. Then “Operation Solitaire” comes on and its a slow song with a good bass and some cool echoing guitar sounds. Watt talks about the weather and some other crazy shit. You hang on and it’s worth it because the best fucking happy song on the album is next, Windmilling. You aren’t sure what the hell the lyrics are about, but it sounds good. When Me and You Remembering comes on, you shrug. Elizabeth Cotton comes on and you make a nasty face. What the fuck are these dudes doing? Where did this song come from? And that’s why I like it. Pure fucko rock.
Now, I can’t verify this either tho I’ve been trying since yesterday and can’t get anything other than the Wikipedia fact which ain’t a fact at all cus some jerkoff in Australia could have written it, but here it is: the title If’n comes from from a song Samantha sings in Bewitched. Here’s the video.
Sometimes its John Coltrane. Sometimes its Son House. And not just old jazz or older blues guys. Sometimes its Wire. Today and yesterday, it’s Skip James. I was cleaning house, the bi-annual check up, and I mean my computer, and while I was transferring files to my external hard drive and deleting shit I’ll never listen to, my iTunes Shuffle ran rampant. I tried to steer it in new directions but my computer was depressed and sluggish so it kept hitting those Elliott Smith and PJ Harvey tunes. The real depressing-want-to-kill-yourself tunes. I’ve never seen such a suicidal computer, and only 1 year old. Well, in the midst of the machine’s depression and my battle to save its life, “Devil Got My Woman” by Skip James came on. That was it. All the other songs were bullshit. That was it, something. Skip James. With one song he made every other song on the planet seem disgusting. Unworthy of existence. All of it cheap trash. I turned Shuffle Off and my computer didn’t put up a fight. I sat back and we listened to the entire Complete Early Recordings of 1930. “Hard Time Killin’ Floor Blues” bested “Devil” and “4 O’Clock Blues” topped ‘em both. When that was through I thought Lightnin’ Hopkins would follow it up nicely, but I thought wrong. Even Lightnin’ Hopkins was killed and nauseated by the great Nehemiah Curtis SKIP James. For now, nothing’s sadder except silence.
I’ve got a credit card bill on my desk flipped over with ONLY FIREHOSE written in big black letters. It’s there to force me to listen to fIREHOSE instead of immediately turning to the Minutemen’s What Makes a Man Start Fires? or Double Nickels for my Mike Watt fix. The note is the result of a talk I had with my cousin-in-law. After telling him my favorite band, the Minutemen, he surprised me and said he always leaned toward the fIREHOSE side. The fIREHOSE side? I never knew there was a fIREHOSE side. I assumed every intelligent music listener was in love with the Minutemen and fIREHOSE was just the other band Watt and Hurley did after D. Boon was killed in a car accident in 1985. I had no response. I had never given fIREHOSE their due. I still thought he was crazy, but I had to give ‘em a legitimate shot. So I wrote the note and left it on my desk. It worked. The note’s been impossible to avoid. It travels around my desk area, inescapable. Right now it’s on the floor next to my new wiffle ball bat and my old 1 wood Golden Bear golf club I keep close by in case I need to fight off the fascists in my neighborhood. The note is my scarlet A, but dammit, it worked. The last month or so, half of my listening has been dedicated to the 5 righteous fIREHOSE albums. This is what I found out.
fIREHOSE is the dream realized. The Minutemen may not have wanted to sell a million copies of their records and become big rock stars, but they did want to reach as many open minded folks as possible. The Project Mersh EP and 3 Way Tie (For Last) LP poke fun at making commercial records with verses and choruses and fade outs, but it’s still the Minutemen doing exactly that and doing it well. And it’s not exactly commercial if you compare it to what was selling in the early 80s. They were givin’ it a try, but I don’t think they would have ever gotten the Warner Brothers Husker deal of 86 or the 91 Columbia deal fIREHOSE eventually earned. They weren’t made for the big guys. They just wanted to see if they could do it. It’s not sell out because they were singing about selling out and titling it that.
fIREHOSE weren’t sell out either. They were nicer. They still waved a freak flag, to use Watt-spiel, but they were able to drag in a bigger audience with poppier singles like the wonderful “Sometimes,” which may or may not have been one of their only actual singles before Columbia was their daddy. Songs like this walk the fine line between playing the basement and playing upstairs. It’s in the middle of the staircase, but it’s never uncomfortable. The Minutemen were always in the basement, just they were so fucking loud people upstairs heard em. AND they were louder because half the kids downstairs weren’t screaming for ‘em, they were waiting for Black Flag. fIREHOSE sat on the staircase so Minutemen addicts downstairs wouldn’t be upset and the guys upstairs could get a better listen. In other words, fIREHOSE was more successful because words like success are only used by people upstairs and they were in on the action.
The spirit of the Minutemen is there. Double Nickels is the extreme example of how much those guys did not give a shit about conventions. You’ve got acoustic instrumentals next to bongo rants next to live CCR covers next to punk rock anthems. So in fIREHOSE when you get a Hurley drum song next to an acoustic Ed Crawford folk drinking ballad next to a funky bass driven song with Mike Watt reading his stream-beat poetry you don’t question it. It’s chaotic, but it never gets boring. That’s the appeal of the Minutemen to me and also the reason why many people can’t get Double Nickels and why they might not like a fIREHOSE album. Even mid-song transitions that wander into new directions and never return is Minutemen philosophy. What’s nice about fIREHOSE is you get to soak it in a little more. It’s not gone before it gets going. That’s not a bash at the Minutemen, it’s just a common complaint. fIREHOSE are the epic alternative to the Minutemen. So why are most Minutemen fans, my past self included, reluctant to give fIREHOSE a shot. Here’s a comment from the YouTube “Down With the Bass” video.
iburl (3 months ago):
Some Minutemen fans always are harsh on Ed. It’s a shame…Ed was a great singer and player. He ruled, and I wish fIREHOSE were still around. Who the hell else should they have played with? Ronnie James Dio?
Well said. If you know the story, you can’t knock Watt and Hurley for getting a new singer and trucking on. It’s even wrong to say they got a new singer because as we all know Ed got them. He was 21 year old kid in Ohio and heard a rumor Watt and Hurley were auditioning new singers which wasn’t the case because Watt says he didn’t even pick up a bass let alone think about replacing his best friend D. Boon. I can see this dude packing his car up in Ohio and driving straight to Pedro like a madman listenin to the same CCR Greatest Hits tape. Instead of going to see the ocean for the first time in his life, he knocks on Watt’s door. I see Watt opening the door and this dude doesn’t even say, Hey Watt! or sorry bout D., he just jumps into it. “Let’s start a band! Right now, man!” AND Watt, heavy eyed and deflated and beaten looks at this kid and says, “Are you real, man?” Ragin Full On was released 9 months later. You can see this as sleeping with yer dead buddies wife while he’s still warm in the ground, but you can also see this as a victory for the music world because it got Watt and Hurley playing again. Watt is more popular than ever now. We can thank Ed for that. Who knows what Watt would have done if this dude from Ohio didn’t come knocking. He may have never recorded music ever again. He may have ended up workin the line in Pedro.
Now, the name. You probably know the band name is from a video of Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues” and he’s holding up cue cards with phrases on ‘em. Here’s the list of cue cards:
basement
medicine
pavement
government
trench coat
laid off
bad cough
paid off
kid
did
when
again
alley way
new friend
coon-skin cap
big pen
twenty dollar bills
ten
fleet foot
black soot
heat put
bed but
anyway
many say
must bust
D. A.
Look out
It Don’t matter
tip toes
No Dose
those
fire hose
clean nose
plain clothes
wind blows
get well
it’s hard
write braille
get jailed
fail
watch it!
here they come!
users
cheaters
theaters
whirlpool
new fool
leaders? ? ?
pawking meters
get born
Short pants- romance
get blessed
suckcess
Please her, please him
don’t lift
day shift
dig yourself
hid
man whole
scandals
bum
chew gum, no
the vandals took all the handles
what?
So I liked the idea of writing about fIREHOSE without talking about the Minutemen, but it’s impossible. fIREHOSE deserves to be talked about as their own band, but my obsession with the Minutemen doesn’t allow me to do this. They shouldn’t be thought of as an aftertaste. They should be thought of as a unique band, but I think it’ll be better to use the Minutemen as a launch pad. And so begins my project to write on each of the fIREHOSE albums in chronological order. I’ll work on my brevity, my enemy.
Ragin’ Full On
Ragin’ Full On is one of the most paranoid albums of the 80s. In that weird time, mainstream was cover up (as it usually is) and the underground was seething. To make an album that is so confident musically and heartfelt lyrically is an achievement. Sometimes the lyrics are so sad its uncomfortable. This balance of presenting art completely open and unstable with over-the-top-confidence is something that only best writers can pull off. They started from scratch and nine fucking months after Watt and Hurley met this fucko from Ohio, they had an album out and were touring it. That’s the best part. They wasted no time after D. Boon’s death and the death of the greatest power trio of all time. They mourned in these songs, yet its hard to even hear them mourning.
“Brave Captain” opens the album and sets the tone for the album. This album ain’t gonna cry about D. Boon, it’s gonna honor him by kickin’ ass. Facing the problem head on. The lyrics are nervous as hell. It’s 2/3 of the greatest punk band of all time and 1/3 this dude from Ohio no ones ever heard of. “There are doubts in your ability. There’s too many blanks in your analogies.” There doubt surrounding Ed as the new frontman and guitarist. There’s doubt about Hurley and Watt in a new band. The song doesn’t exactly solve this problem, but it definitely doesn’t make you want to turn the record off. It’s one of the more interesting choruses in all of fIREHOSE.
The following song is a 2 minute Mike Watt bass driven jam called “Under the Influence of Meat Puppets.” Ed plays a D. Boon riff timidly and the song is a dance song because Hurley makes it one. At the end, Ed talks about the uncertainty of the future and ends with the line “We want to make plans, but to make another mistake? So difficult we care enough to try. So crazy, so we sit and wonder…” Still unsure and look at the title. The second song on the first album for this band and it’s about playing like another band, the Meat Puppets. Weird start.
Lots of critics have written about Ragin Full On, fIREHOSE’s debut, as a completely different sound than the Minutemen. That ain’t true. It’s following through with what the Minutemen were doing on their last record, 3 Way Tie For Last. “Price of Paradise” and “Courage” could be on Ragin‘.
fIREHOSE carries on Watt-spiel. It’s different with Crawford singing it because he can actually sing. When Ed starts singing, actually singing better than Watt or Boon ever did in the Minutemen, it’s great because he’s still singing these weird ass lyrics about relating dudes to jazz and chemical wires. It’s odd for someone to sing these beat stream of conscious lines instead of spewing them. He’s not spurting out the words like D. Boon. He take his time and bellows. So when the lyrics are
I’m the paint on the road
the weight of your load
with the cracked glass ground
fuck it!
an itch in your brain
in the drain shootin’ rain
I’m the flame from the train
I’ve been smeltin’ rail
flood from the fire
a hot tub cool
mire
ticket to fly her? NO
then blaze chemical wire
blazin’ chemical wire
it’s hard not to laugh out loud. Here’s a guy, EdfromOHIO, who has a really great voice with a style that 6 years later every alternative rock singer on the planet had singing Mike Watt’s weird ass lyrics about chemical wires. What a trip. Fucking Amazing.
My minutemen obsession has caused me to grab what’s good in a song and sink into it, then next song. More than any other band on the planet, the Minutemen understood that the majority of pop/rock songs produced make one point and play it over and over or set up for one big shining moment. Instead of repeating this point or hammering this moment over 3 or 4 minutes, the Minutemen do it for :48 seconds and move on. I can’t think this way when it comes to fIREHOSE. As much as people think they are walkin’ the line more than the Minutemen with verses and choruses, I’d say half the songs on Ragin‘ don’t fit that formula at all. Some songs are structured more like classical or jazz with codas and sometimes codas on top of codas. Yea, they have choruses, but with more time they have more weirdness.
“On Your Knees” would have been 2 different Minutemen songs – the first the slow angry chug of the first 1:45 and the 2nd the completely different ending from 1:45 to 2:19. “Perfect Pairs” is 2 Minutemen songs. It goes back and forth for 2 minutes.
The cover of 3-Way Tie has each of the guys heads mounted on a wall with a label. D. Boon’s reads Singer/Activist. Mike Watt – Anti-War Sympathizer, Hurley- Dude/Local 357. If forced to give Ed a label, I’d give him Singer/Romantic. And this is what makes fIREHOSE fIREHOSE. While I’d argue the songwriting, talking mostly lyrics here, of the Minutemen is about immediacy in the moment spiel. fIREHOSE is more about reflection and wonder and the past and the future. On Ragin‘, the obvious reason is D. Boon’s death, but just as much it’s Ed. He’s a romantic wonderer. On slow songs like “This…” and “Things Could Turn Around,” Ed sounds like a father singing to his newborn son to ease his pain. If D. was for starting revolutions and changing shit, Ed was for easin the pain while the shit’s goin on. Comforting your soul in the shit.
The best song on Ragin is track 13, “Relatin’ Dudes to Jazz.” There aren’t many albums in the history of albums where that’s the case. I think its the best song because it’s the song on the album that Watt’s crazy story about talkin about jazz in New Haven or something is the most together for the trio. Ed has his own version of a punk spew down pat (something that is essential to the future fIREHOSE sound) while still letting loose and bellowing. In the second half, the guitar and bass and drums all have a few seconds to shine, interweaving just enough and then finishing. Without wallowing.
Check the name of the band in this MTV video. Fuckin’ MTV.
-ADAM
And no, I’m not exhausted with this. This is just the beginning. More art and If’n to come.
I had a whole other post mostly written then my phone deleted the whole thing but I decided to start another instead.
I’ve spent most of my day between listening to George Clinton (in honor and excitement of purchasing tickets for the Feb 21st show at BB Kings) and Kate & Anne McGarrigle. I was attempting to do a post dedicated to Kate McGarrigle but I just don’t know about the sisters work. It’s a tragedy that the world lost Kate this week, and an even greater tragedy is my lack of knowledge of the sisters music. I have the first two albums which I’ve only listened to a handful of times each. The second album doesn’t seem to get the notoriety that the first does for some reason. They’re both amazing records. Great folk albums. The two sisters have incredible voices that harmonize so well you’d be sure they were…well…sisters…and they are. But it’s Kate’s voice that caught my ear and keeps me coming back. Though this should be the other way around, her voice reminds me of Corin Tucker.
I’m tired.
This train rides just started.
So while I sit here watching Monty Python and the Holy Grail on a very small screen, remember: always look on the bright side of life…and now I’ll probably watch Life of Brian when I get home.
So here I am at work. I should be paying more attention to what I am supposed to be doing but I need a bit of a break. My mind is going crazy with database junk right now. As I try and build my first professional grade website with full original content management system, new design and coding by myself I find the water rising up a little bit over my head. So I need a break for a sec. Also I want to check out the database on the back end of SWR and see how its set up, and then pretty much just model my new site against that. Anyway, I was supposed to have some thoughts in here.
1) SWR needs a new design. We’ve had the same one for a while now and I think I have finally become comfortable enough to realize I won’t break the web and, if there is any downtime on SWR, no one cares. Hopefully Adam and I will talk about this tonight.
2) The future of the bedroom. I think this will be the final year of whatidoinmybedroom.com. We don’t use it and it could easily just be added to SWR. I’ve gone into job interviews and have been asked to leave after telling them about the bedroom. Others people have just laughed about…and then didn’t give me the job later. Either way, I think this will be the final months of the bedroom, so get your rest while you can. Ok that was lame.
3) We have a lot of lists, including this one. Is it just easier to think in lists? Maybe.
4) I want to listen to SMiLE right now. Not the Brian Wilson Presents version either.
5) I’ve worn a sweater to work every single day.
Ah Fuck it, I’m doing a top 10 for 2009. If anything, it’ll be something nice to look back on to see how twisted my brain was and is and will be many years from now. A jumping off point, right? I tried to think of a list of top anything films of the decade but I realized not many people would care because my list would go like this: Transporter 1, Transporter 3, Transporter 2, Crank 1, Crank 2, Kill Bill 1, Kill Bill 2, Born After This, We Jam Econo and Punch Drunk Love (actually that would be #1. Move backwards, maybe).
I know no one will notice, but they don’t match up to my top 100 of the decade at ALL. Maybe the last month has given me perspective. Probably not, though.
I’ve written on every one of these bands in some capacity this last year, except Grant Hart, but you all know Grant Hart. He’s the poppy one.
1. Screaming Females – Power Move
2. Children – Hard Times Hanging at the End of the World
3. Dark Meat – Truce Opium
4. Death – For the Whole World to See
5. Slayer – World Painted Blood
6. Nutsak – Failed Musician
7. Sonic Youth – The Eternal
8. Stupid Party – S/T
9. Shilpa Ray and Her Happy Hookers – A Fish Hook An Eye
10. Grant Hart – Hot Wax
Honorable Mentions that I liked a lot, but didn’t fit in:
