Tampa Calling

How did my mom go from owning such a wide range of rock n’ roll records, from the Beatles to Black Sabbath, to devoting her ears solely to Celine Dion? Living in the land of oldsters and hipsters (some people are both), this question ultimately pervades every aspect of existence in Tampa Bay. Issues of marketed generation norms, like older people being more mild mannered and set in their ways and younger people experimenting with sex and drugs, maintain arbitrary divisions between age groups and sonic preferences. Generalizations of the 1960’s “Summer of Love” are quickly ripped to shreds in records by bored mutants like The Stooges. Their self-titled record in 1969 and Fun House in 1970 destroyed notions of the singular cultural experience by being nasty and unlearned instead of nice-sounding and well-trained. History has never been as cut-and-dry/black-and-white as we are led to believe. Likewise, our present continues to be very complicated.

All my life I’ve heard things like, “now that John Lennon could sing” or “Eric Clapton knows how to play real guitar music” or other such flapdoodle. People who make statements like those assume there’s a correct way to sing or play guitar, and other musicians who are inferior or get it wrong should do something else. Iggy Pop’s snarling vocals and Ron Asheton’s unsophisticated, immediate and exceedingly raw approach to the guitar challenged the notion of perfect technical skill as the ultimate goal in music. (Pictured: the late Ron Asheton, photo by Dena Flows.)

Read the rest of this entry »

From the “Just Fuckin’ Creepy” Dep’t. here at CL Music, John Lennon pimps free laptops for the Third World:

It was early Tuesday morning, December 9. I was 9 years old and living on 30th Terrace in Lauderdale Lakes, Florida. I must have been eating my breakfast and getting ready for school. My memory of this day has all the clarity of a dream, except for one element:

I still can recall watching the Today show and seeing the live footage of people gathered near Central Park to mourn the passing of John Lennon. He’d been shot the night before and pronounced dead just after 11 p.m.

Mom wasn’t crying, but I could sense that her world, if only for a little while, had just become a little bit grayer.

Even at my young age, I was a Beatles fan. At my insistence in 1978, Mom took me to see Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band: The Movie. It’s probably an awful film, but as a child who played that record over and over on 8-track, I loved it.

So I was well aware who John Lennon was and why his passing could bring so many to tears. He was a Beatle. And I loved the Beatles. I would walk around one of the handful of apartment complexes I lived in singing “Let It Be.” I barely knew any words to “Good Morning, Good Morning,” but I would sing it anyway, much to Mom’s aggravation.

Read the rest of this entry »

Updated: Dec. 6, 2008:

Updated: Dec. 16, 2008:

Click here for “Ten more depressing Christmas songs.”

This list of sad Christmas songs first ran as a feature in Creative Loafing, back when it was the Weekly Planet, in 2002. I then re-posted it here at TampaCalling last December.

Unfortunately, the list is again proving appropriate, even more this year than during any holiday season in my lifetime. So, I decided to revive the entire article that ran in the old Weekly Planet under the title “Blue Christmas: Songs to avoid (or wallow in) for the season.” Cheers.

Originally published 12.18.02:

As anybody living on this side of a Rockwell canvas already knows, the holidays aren’t always the happiest time of the year. If you’re strapped for cash, feeling lonely or disenfranchised, Christmas usually ushers in as much grief as joy. So, to help deal with the potential doldrums of this week of all Madison Avenue weeks, here’s a list of 12/25 songs from the past three decades that wittily reflect — in no uncertain terms — the occasionally grim realities of the season. (Such pre-rock classics as “White Christmas” harbor nearly as much melancholy as merriment, as well, but Jewish composers like Irving Berlin buried the sentiment a bit deeper in the subtext than today’s songwriters.)

The alphabetically listed tunes posted below range from poignant (”Pretty Paper”) and irreverent (”Fairy Tale of New York”) to humorous (”The Christians and the Pagans”) and morbid (”Brick”) — the overriding criteria for the selections being reality-based storytelling traditionally missing from the standard holiday fare. And although John Lennon’s “Happy Xmas (War is Over)” made the cut, political songs with less universal emotional gravity — Steve Earle’s “Christmas in Washington,” Randy Newman’s “Christmas in Capetown” — were deemed unworthy. As was Elvis’ generic “Blue Christmas” and the well-intentioned but nauseating 1980s sap-fest “Do they Know It’s Christmas.”

Included after the artists’ name is the best budget album on which to find each title. This little perk is just in case you’re looking for that special depressing something to send your ex. You know, just to remind him or her of just how much misery they’ve caused you during this season of supposed Yuletide spirit.

“Brick” Ben Folds Five, Whatever and Ever Amen The economically challenged protagonist rises at “6 a.m. the day after Christmas” to drive his young girlfriend to the abortion clinic. Now how’s that for holiday cheer? Killer Line: “They call her name at 7:30/ I pace around the parking lot/ Then I walk down to buy her flowers/ And sell some gifts that I got.”

“The Christians and the Pagans,” Dar Williams, Mortal City How about a little humor before blowing our brains out? In this astute comedic sketch from Williams, two related families polarized by religious differences come together for a holiday meal and try to agree that “Christmas is like solstice.” Killer Line: “The food was great, the tree plugged in, the meal had gone without a hitch/ Till Timmy turned to Amber and said, “Is it true that you’re a witch?”

“Christmas in Prison,” John Prine, Sweet Revenge John Prine is one of few songwriters who could take such clichéd country-music terrain as prison, heartache and Christmas, and come up with something that smacked of true sincerity — no big surprises, but genuinely moving. Killer Line: “It’s Christmas in prison/ There’ll be music tonight/ I’ll probably get homesick/ I love you/ Goodnight.”

“Fairytale of New York,” The Pogues, If I Should Fall From Grace With God A homeless couple’s dialogue begins cheerily but by the end of this four-minute exchange, vile nastiness prevails. Killer Line: “You’re a punk/ You’re an old slut on junk … You scum bag/ You maggot/ You cheap lousy faggot/ Happy Christmas your arse/ I pray God/ It’s our last.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Billboard magazine, long the music industry bible, celebrated the 50-year anniversary of its Hot 100 singles chart not too long ago, and issued a compilation of the top songs and artists of the last half-century. I’m not even that much of a chart hound and I got lost in the lists for quite awhile. Billboard’s Hot 100 is based on actual sales and airplay, and therefore has been an accurate historical gauge for what’s really been popular in music over the years. Peruse the 50-year charts here.

Here’s a quick quiz before you go browsing:

1. One man (who was a member of two bands) is in the Top 11 artists. Who is it?

2. Janet Jackson and Michael Jackson both made the Top 10 artists. Which one placed higher?

3. What contemporary hard-rock band placed highest on the Hot 100 list?

4. Who placed more solo songs on the Hot 100, Paul McCartney or John Lennon?

ANSWERS IN COMMENTS. (Click on Leave a Comment” below)