We're On Vacation!

March 23, 2009 Earworm

Throughout the last few days my phone has been delivering the sounds of voices I've not heard in over twenty years, yet they all begin as if it were only yesterday when we last spoke. As each call brings news of another connection made, another face that will be seen, I get more excited about this trip back to Baltimore and I can barely sit still. And the music is filling my head so quickly that I'm barely able to make sense of it all so I'm grabbing Modern English's "Hands Across The Sea" because it seems the most appropriate as I watch and hear all of these broken links coming back together. Not to pretend that we're young again but to refresh ourselves with the energy we once had in abundance: to hear our memories told from a different perspective, of our exploits we'd long forgotten, and most importantly, to remind ourselves of all the dreams we had that are still within reach if we want them.

Then again, it will be fun just to drink with the old gang again and you can thank me later for not choosing "I Melt With You".

February 16, 2009 Earworm

Wow...
I learned that I'm surrounded by quite a few bah humbuggers this Valentine's Day. I'm not sure which is worse: those in a relationship who shrug the whole thing off or those who are single. While I'm not big on the grand statements suggested by advertisements, I've never been one to shy away from the chance to give/receive inexpensive sentiment sheathed in vivid red with a side of chocolate. Call me easy.



While running out to pick a card for my own personal heart holder, I planned to listen to Ultra Vivid Scene during the drive but accidentally pulled Tracey Ullman's "You Broke My Heart In Seventeen Places". Thinking, "Why not?", I went with it. As with most pastiche, the album hasn't aged well but it does have it's moments and one of them is "They Don't Know". Tracey's singing career was more of a lark - hilariously documented in her "Live And Exposed" show from 2005 - but the choice of Kirsty MacColl's "They Don't Know" as her second single - following the surprise success of her debut, an almost serious cover of "Breakway" with a high camp video that was still being played at The Hippo two years ago - showed a sense of savvy on someone's part. MacColl's own version was released by Stiff four years earlier and gained substantial UK airplay but, due to a distributors strike that hindered the record making it into stores, failed to chart. Not the type to hold a grudge, Kirsty can be heard on background vocals on Tracey's version.

The difference between the two records is striking: Kirsty's version sounds as though she will ignore the words of her friends but knows the whole thing will end in tears while Tracey - taking tongue out of cheek - actually sounds as though she believes that her fantasies will come true. Although Tracey's record is obviously routed in nostalgia - synthetic bells recall "Chapel Of Love" and castanets conjure Spector - it's second hand nostalgia as though channeled through a revival of "Grease" and somehow comes across as thoroughly modern for its time. Its time, of course, was steeped in retro deconstruction.

"They Don't Know" holds a special place in my heart as the closing song for nights spent dancing ourselves silly, closing the bar and packing too many teenage boys and girls into a car for a race to Baltimore's Block for hot dogs and then stopping into the seedy magazine stores to pack ourselves into booths to laugh at the peepshow porn offered for twenty-five cents a pop until the owners threw us out. An ever present mix tape would be fast forwarded to the song as we approached Mt. Vernon and we would fall out at the driver's apartment door to dance our last dance before drifting off to our respective beds and our own romantic dreams.

October 10, 2008 Earworm

Longer than the landmarks that it conjures in my mind, "Driver's Seat" by Sniff 'n' The Tears still reminds me of night time journeys in someone else's car, usually speeding downtown on Baltimore's I-83, the Jones Falls Expressway, passing the soda distribution plant with its giant Suburban sign with it's iconic golfer forever trapped in mid-swing and a self satisfied grin and the London Fog factory, with it's creepy clock tower that always seemed to be waiting for a circle of bats. That clock tower terrified me as a child for reasons only a little boy could explain and that no one else would understand and I would bury my face in my coat as we approached the bend in the highway that would bring it into view.

By the time "Driver's Seat" was all over the airwaves, I would no longer need to cover my eyes, but I still found myself glancing at the tower anxiously, as if some unseen action by the Scooby Gang might cause my adolescent fears to come alive. But if my heart were still pounding, it was in anticipation of what was waiting for me downtown, where I-83 - my expressway to freedom - ended. And what was waiting for me would guarantee that I would never find myself forever trapped in mid-swing and a self satisfied grin.

Now, grab an Almond Smash, get in the driver's seat, and get the weekend started.

How's that, Kmatt? 'Been on JFX lately?

June 04, 2008 Eaworm

So, thanks to Kmatt, I've finally given in to Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds' "Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!" and I am glad. Apparently enough years have gone by that I can now listen to Nick Cave without my eyes burning from the memory of patchouli and the vision of Bob Nance, strung out and laughing at the jokes of a vacuum cleaner.

Lazarus, now Larry (and gee, thanks for that, Nick!)takes his resurrection on the road to all the familiar modern Sodoms where he finds that not everyone is up to the challenge of a second chance. Like Tatum O'Neal or Hillary Clinton...

As I'd already been pondering missed opportunities and the second chances my life has experienced, as well as what, exactly, makes a person make the right choices, this album fits like a glove. Oh, and I've decided that there are no right choices, only what you make of the ones you've chosen.

postscript: I seem to have opened a door with this one and not the one to the Nick Cave fan club. Hello, fellow former(ish) Baltimore kids. Drop a line and say "hello" - pres2go@aol.com. If not, I'm glad both you and I are alive to remember and I hope that you are doing well, found some sort of happiness, and are no longer torturing your hair. Kind regards, Larry

May 23, 2008 Earworm

I dashed off to my favorite second hand cd/dvd store last week in search of one thing and, par for the course, ended up finding another. The find was so exciting that I actually bellowed the non-acronymic version of "OMG, NFW!", giving the other browsers quite a start. Pulling myself together and saying a silent prayer to Alison Surasky, my personal patron saint of exclamations, I took the copy of Love Tractor's "This Ain't No Outerspace Ship" to the counter to claim my prize and then dashed out to the car to subject the parking lot to a cover of The Gap Band's "Party Train" via maximum volume. As my tummy rumbled with the bass, yesterday was altered and twenty-one years evaporated. I could smell the Myers dark and o.j. and the Camel non-filtered scent of me peering through the haze at the microcosm that was, at that point, my understanding of the world. The people I loved and the ones I hated; those who would fade with time and those that I would lose abruptly for primarily pointless reasons. There at the bar sat Kenny and Kmatt, laughing - probably at someone's expense; Linda serving some concoction guaranteed to set you staggering; Spurlock eating the worm on a dare; Alison, Jody, and Susan having just finished damaging the ozone; Charlie still not wanting anything to do with me. The dance floor was packed with faces that seemed so important then, but now no longer have a name. For the moment, everybody was on board.

Love Tractor's interpretation of "Party Train" was polarizing among those who cared about such things. Some felt that it was a laughable frat boy work out, while others said it was tongue in cheek and therefore exempt. To me it was both and neither and twenty-one years hasn't changed that lack of opinion. It was then a fun way to fill the floor for five minutes - or longer if I felt like working in the original version - because, regardless of how the message was delivered, it needed to be heard.

Have a great Memorial Day weekend and don't forget to remember.

April 18, 2008 Earworm

"The Breakup Song (They Don't Write 'Em)" brought him a top twenty hit and endless airplay in his hometown of Baltimore in 1981 and "Jeopardy" made him world famous in 1983, but the Greg Khin song that I really love is little remembered "Happy Man" from 1982. Power pop of the finest and poppiest, it's simple message of all you need is the right woman is the testosterone version of the basic girl group theme of "boys boys boys!"

Greg knew the way to San Jose and is now a morning DJ there as well as an author/editor. By all accounts, he is a happy man.

Have a happy weekend.