Outside Counsel

Although it was released last August I'm declaring Tom Morello's "Black Spartacus Heart Attack Machine" my personal hit single of the summer. The album is hit-or miss, but mostly pretty good, and unlike some fans of Morello's work with Rage Against the Machine Outside Counsel is totally down with the Morello's politics.
 Honorable Mention: Pussy Riot, Putin Lights Up the Fires. You wonder sometimes if music -- particularly, for me, the American music that I love so much, still has the power to speak to the political realities we see every day, but then something like "Black Spartacus" comes along and I feel better. I think about someone like Tomaz Stanko living in communist Poland, for whom the sound of freedom was American jazz, or how Václav Havel heard the same thing in the music of the Velvet Underground. Naturally Mitt Romney wants to cut arts funding: Mitt Romney, unfortunately, represents just about everything that I find despicable about America-- his belief in American exceptionalism, his confidence that his favored station in life has been earned somehow, his contempt for everyone who isn't him, or at least as rich as he is. Pussy Riot and the Velvets and the Plastic People of the Universe and Bruce Springsteen and Neil Young and countless others stand in ferocious opposition to those ideas, and use their work to express the importance of the freedoms we tend to take advantage of, starting with freedom of expression.

And speaking of the music biz, it is early days yet, but a contender for my Personal Hit Single of the summer is Duffy's "Mercy". (There's a fun video here.) This is the kind of thing, it seems to me, that it takes a label to break, and I'm fine with that. The history of popular music is littered with artists who got ripped off by their labels, but there are just as many who got clipped by their managers, or by someone else-- being a good business person is a distinct skill set for musicians, just as it is for lawyers, or anybody else. Good management hears a singer like Duffy, says "I can sell that", and then we get a cool song.

On a recent "Theme Time Radio Hour" Pulitzer Prize winning DJ Bob Dylan was talking about how unfortunate it is that there are no B-sides any more. As usual, he is quite right: what a serendipitous pleasure the B-side was. I like Duffy's "Warwick Avenue" so much that this year I think I'll nominate both a Personal Hit Single and a B-side (even though "Warwick Avenue" is an A-Side in the UK. Hey, singles with two hits are a venerable tradition too).

Songs of the Summer, 1940-2010. Some great stuff here, obviously, but not a lot of overlap with what my own list would look like. The defining criteria for a Personal Hit Single of the Summer is whether, when it came on the car radio you either turned it up (if you were riding shotgun) or yelled, "Turn that up!" (if you were driving, or in the back). It goes without saying that you'd be in the car with someone else, probably on the way to the beach. So, for me, 1979: Hot Stuff by Donna Summer, and maybe 2008: I Kissed A Girl by Katy Perry qualify. (My actual 2008 was "Sequestered in Memphis") 1965: Satisfaction by The Rolling Stones doesn't work because there is no way I'd have been in a car with anyone who'd have turned it up when I was 8. 1970: American Woman by The Guess Who? Maybe. It is a song I associate with 8th Grade, and summer camp. We all thought the grunt in the beginning was hilarious.

I've been trying to settle on my personal hit single for the summer, but nothing has really grabbed me the way a song ought to if it is going to define a season. I have, however, been enjoying Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins' "Rabbit Fur Coat", and have been giving consideration to their cover of "Handle With Care" and “The Charging Sky”. I'm not sure when I last thought about The Traveling Wilburys-- 1988 was a long time ago. It is interesting to look at what else Dylan was up to in this period. He released "Dylan and the Dead" and "Down in the Groove" that year, and "Oh, Mercy" in '89. Collaborating with the Greatful Dead is one of thise ideas that probably made sense at the time, but the end result is just a Dead album, with worse singing than usual. "Down in the Groove" is not something I've ever felt the urge to listen to a second time, and although "Oh, Mercy" is an improvement, it is likewise not a side that anything particularly positive can be said about. The Wilburys, though, somehow work. Christgau said at the time that, "this is the fun get-together it's billed as--somebody was letting his hair down, that's for sure. My nominee is Dylan, who dominates half the tracks and is the only man here capable of writing a clever lyric on call. Maybe he's a genius after all," and gave it an A-. Listening to Jenny Lewis warble "Handle With Care" it occured to me that one of the reasons the song works may be that everyone who contributed to it (Lynne, Harrison, Petty and Orbison all get co-credit) was trying to write up to Dylan's contribution. I'd be willing to bet that Petty wrote most of it-- the bridge is pretty clearly Orbison, probably with Lynne helping him over the rough spots.

It's funny-- although we tend not to think of Dylan as collaborating, in fact he has frequently written with other people: most of "Desire" was co-written with Jacques Levy; his work with The Band was as a full partnership, and produced a great deal of signature material, and, of course, he often wrote with George Harrison. (I'd say that "If Not For You" is one of the tenderest, sweetest love songs he ever wrote. Interestingly, on his website he is listed as sole author.)

Ginger tagged me with this:
1. Total number of records I own on CD (or vinyl or cassette): This is why I put this off so long-- I really, really didn't want to count. Finally I took out a tape measure-- on vinyl, eight and a half feet (a bit more, actually, and of course there are the sides that reside in the Antipodes. I don't have a copy of "This Is The Planet", though.) On CD about five and a half feet. There is comparatively little overlap-- the vinyl is mostly rock'n'roll, mostly from the late 60's, 70's and early 80's, dominated by punk, reggae and, I suppose you could call it "art rock". The CDs are mostly jazz, blues and whatever sort of rock'n'roll I listen to these days-- I'd estimate that the ratio is about three to one jazz to blues and rock. There is a sprinkling of cassettes, of which no more than a handful are pre-recorded-- Rod Stewart's first solo album (the one with "Handbags and Gladrags", Television's ROIR release, "The Blow Up", Todd Rundgren's "A Capella" (shut up), Stevie Wonder's "Talking Book"-- except for the Television, I'm not sure why I own these.

2. Total volume of music files on my computer: 13.67 GB. That was easy. This is mostly the stuff I have on CD-- I haven't spent $20 bucks on iTunes yet, and the stuff I downloaded with Limewire was several hard drives ago. Some of it survives, but not much.

3. The last record I bought:
Guinga: "Noturno Copacabana". Haven't really gotten into it yet, though.

4. The last record listened to / song playing now: "My Slow Descent into Alcholism", Tthe New Pornographers. It came up on shuffle as I was driving in. A good example of why it is nice to have a daughter who dj's at her college radio station. This band is a done deal among the young and hip, but in the ordinary course of things I'd have found out about them in about two years from now.

And while I'm on the subject, the song that is my personal hit single for the summer is Kathleen Edwards' "Back to Me". Funny, mean, with a great guitar hook-- I love when that happens.

5. Five records that I listen to a lot or that mean a lot to me (either singles or albums):
"I've Got You Under My Skin", Frank Sinatra/Nelson Riddle
"Dear Old Stockholm", Arthur Taylor with Taylor's Wailers
"For You", Bruce Springsteen
"Shelter From the Storm", Bob Dylan
"Goodby Porkpie Hat", Charles Mingus

Of course this is off the top of my head-- we could break it down a number of different ways, and come up with lists of five that feature none of these. In fact, I think I want a do-over. I gotta have "Hong Kong Blues" for example....

6. Finally, tag five people to do this meme: Well, Greg, anyway. Erica. Anyone from KRAC who wants to weigh in.

What are the criteria for my Personal Hit Single of The Summer? Well, I suppose they are somewhat amorphous. Rule #1: When it comes on the car radio you either turn it up (if you are riding shotgun) or yell, "Turn that up!" (if you are driving, or in the back). I'm flexible about whether it has to be an actual summer of that summer release-- but it should be new to me for the summer it is supposed to be representing. Meghan Trainer's "All About That Bass" has been working for me whenever I've heard it, and that has been happening with increasing frequency.

Although it is past mid-July the search for my personal hit single of the summer continues. A current contender is "Sequestered in Memphis" by the Hold Steady (which you can listen to here). The number gets bonus points for dealing with legal issues in its hook: "Subpoenaed in Texas/Sequestered in Memphis"-- what's not to like about that? And it's not even the best line in the song.

I was punk rock last time disco was big. In the US there was a divide between punk and disco,
at least at first. Those barriers broke down ultimately-- disco is just R&B after all, and if Talking Heads and Blondie could bring the funk than there was no reason not to dig the sounds that they were digging. Right now I am finding that Daft Punk is pretty great, and I am thinking that "Get Lucky" may be a contender for my Personal Hit Single of the Summer.

It's May, and it's 44° and raining. Early days for my Personal Hit Single of the Summer, but I'll tell you this much: this cover of Wilco's "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart" by JC Brooks and the Uptown Sound is going to be in heavy rotation for a while. Check it:

I am declaring Paul Simon's "Wristband" my personal hit single of the summer. As ever the criteria for this designation are fluid, but if I am in a car when the song comes on and I say, "Hey, turn it up," that is a leading indicator

Missed them when they opened for Dylan owing to the most elaborate security set-up I've ever seen at a concert, but Dawes' From A Window Seat is also a contender for my personal hit single of the summer.

It is early days, but Wilco's "You Never Know" is a serious contender for My Personal Hit Single of the Summer.