That Song Makes Me Feel Good

     Although I'll do it until I've lost my mind, it's often hard to argue music due to its subjectivity. One thing everyone can agree on is we all have this sacred collection of songs that make us happy. They might not necessarily be by our favourite bands, they may or may not have nostalgic connotations, or they just might have that je ne sais quoi. These are songs we play because they always put us in a good mood. I never tire of my group .
     While sitting in a downtown coffee shop at 5:30 this morning, I scrawled a list in my journal faster than I could out-think myself. I'd love to hear yours.

1. "Glasgow Kiss" by John Petrucci. If I had an anthem, this would be it. Guitar instrumental I sing to myself when bored.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8ssuW06eoA

2. "America" Yes version of the Simon and Garfunkel classic.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdsUPaIueUw

3. "Alive" by Pearl Jam. I will never tire of thee, Stone Gossard opening.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbhsYC4gKy4

4. "A Quick One While He's Away" by The Who, though I'm happy to hear it as performed by Green Day or My Morning Jacket.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1ku7QNRudg

5. "Stadium Love" by Metric.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6N4a7RX5x7E&ob=av2e

6. "The Cave" by Mumford and Sons.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJcvLyoAAnk

7. "Money For Nothing" by Dire Straits. That riff, that riff.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlPjxz4LGak

8. "Big Rock" by Feeding Like Butterflies, with any of my Good People screaming the "Down to Jericho" part. And it's really hard to find online.

9. "Run Runaway" by Slade. At some point in 1986, I decided that electric guitar was my favourite sound in the whole world.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJwTvBexyJM

10. "Baba O'Riley" by the Who.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8_Pf144Qmg&feature=fvst

11. "Kill My Soul" by The Catherine Wheel. I drum it on my steering wheel.

12. Symphony #9 ("Ode to Joy") by Ludwig van Beethoven. Arguably the best piece of music ever, I learned years after deciding that that Mom played it when she married Dad.

13. "Grace, Too" by the Tragically Hip.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBhDqir7UpA

14. "Army" by Ben Folds.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-7xb63OBHc

15. "J. A. R." by Green Day.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Na1c-9bm8NU

16. "Not Ready to Go" by the Trews. A song that always makes me think of the girl who would one day become my wife.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKKYhBYQ2yE

17. "Blind Faith" by Dream Theater.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kde6bb3ULyc

18. "Get Back" by the Beatles.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XHgP2rJZhM&feature=related

19. "Rockin' In the Free World" by Neil Young. When I decided I liked head-banging.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDzL_WU3mmE&feature=related

20. "Alchemy" by Five Minute Miracle. Old Saskatoon band. Fifteen years later I still find myself whistling this riff.

A Tale Told By an Idiot, Full of Sound and Fury, Signifying Nothing

Now to art. Sorta.

                Saturday night I spent the evening in a relatively-typical fashion with my wife. Glass of wine, rented movie, stayed up late enough after the movie for some Saturday Night Live. I went to bed dwelling upon the poor-quality “art” I encountered (namely the movie and the musical guests on SNL), and felt this was a trend I’ve seen a lot lately. Thinking that perhaps I was tired and cranky and over-thinking about the state of the world, I turned in. Yes, by “thinking” I’m sure I mean “hearing from my wife.” When I woke up, I was rested, but in no way consoled.

                That movie sucked.

                That band sucked.

                Okay, okay, that happens. We’ve all seen bad movies and heard bad bands. In fact, bad enough movies or songs can really be quite enjoyable experiences. It’s like a flush of the system, seeing something you hate that much, feels good.

                I could have left it at that, except the film wasn’t just bad, it was horrible, and yet critics, the masses, the supposedly smart and the unabashedly dumb, that is, everyone but me and the missus, loved the film. The band was similar to many I’ve heard and seen creeping on SNL lately. It was bigger picture. Sad state. The world is sucking, we need a revolution (so, I guess this is Part 2).

                The film in question was Drive. I persuaded my wife to watch based on the numerous reviews I had seen and heard just screaming what a grand movie experience this one was. One of those leap out and grab you Forrest Gump or Little Miss Sunshine or (closer, but still not there) Taxi Driver types that everyone gets something out of. Well, if anger counts, count me as part of everyone. An art house action thriller, huh? Half-way through we realized that it (and, for my suggestion, I) were unforgivable. What a hunk of crap! Taking a gory snoozer with a paper-thin plot, no characterization, no discernible theme worth mentioning, then slowing it down (presumably because if you played it in real time it woulda been, like, 25 minutes long), screwing with the lighting, using Blade Runner’s soundtrack and then unimaginative “guy driving and thinking” scenes (Taxi Driver again) does NOT ART MAKE! In doing everything to put together anything butt just another action film, Nicolas Refn used all of the above to try to toss together a film with substance. Then he told us it had substance. Then the critics told us it had substance. It’s like people who brag about reading an especially hard book that they didn’t get at all, but pretend they did for fear of looking stupid, ignoring the fact that it probably just sucked.

                It’s been so revered, that I went through a moment similar to the analogy above where I thought either I’m stupid or everyone else is. In this case, sicerely, I must say it is everyone else.

                Sitting through it hoping it might redeem itself, too lazy to shut it off, guilty for having paid for it so feeling we must ride it out, we experienced relief when the end credits flashed. Here we clicked on SNL (I won’t address the skits, which appeal widely to moods as suited, and never express to be art), and took in the band. Who they were doesn’t matter. Wait, that’s not quite right. Who they were matters because they don’t matter, because they were so typical, the kind of band you can get twelve of for ten cents, as the saying goes when butchered.

                I try not to get too caught up in that thinking that the music I grew up with is best. This can be hard for anyone, and I do find it trying at times because the music of the first half of the 1990s was reactionary in many ways. There was something revolutionary there. Like punk before it, “grunge” (shudders, but admits ease necessitated) and its ilk cast off the excesses of the previous cycle, in this case the glam and sheen of hair metal and the worst pop ever,  music that reflected the materialism of the 1980s.

                Fifty years ago, when modern popular music was well under way, a revolution occurred. At this point they were saying—for the first time ever!—that rock was dead. The pop, doo-whop, she-boom, ooh-baby themes was being hucked aside for more experimental music, more revolutionary music. Music with meaning and message. Someone read a book, they wrote a song. George Harrison dabbled in Indian mysticism, he wrote a song. Neil Young lost a friend to heroin, wrote a song. Bob Dylan saw inconsistencies in a wealth-driven society, song = written.

Suddenly pop stars had become activists, leaders. Everyone on earth was already listening to their voices, so many of them tried to say things that mattered. Success varied. (This has remained a mandatory job requirement in musical stardom, for better or for worse. They are expected to form and express opinions. Never mind that most of them failed to even finish high school, or were so wealthy at such a young age that they can’t ever be accused of being in touch with reality on any level. What does Angus Young think of the famine in Africa? What, can’t find it on a map? Immaterial!)

So, when the same happened in those early 1990s, heroes like Pearl Jam, Sinead O’Conner, REM, U2 (hanging on from the 80s), started standing for issues. We, the youth who worshipped them, made decisions about these issues as well.

How we need a revolution of thinking music now.

Back to my disgust at the past few musical guests I’ve caught on SNL. With only one exception—Lady Ga Ga, whose spectacle is only matched by her talent—the groups have been composed of airheads. Doofuses who couldn’t form a concrete thought on anything outside of Twilight and the kind of shoes they want to wear if their hairstyle depended on it. And so many doofuses! Why do you need seventeen members in a band if you’re playing fewer chords than the Sex Pistols on one string? What’s the deal with that guy who just hits something with a stick once every second verse? Or that dude doing jumping jacks in the back? What's he for? Why does every group need to have an overweight black man? That stage is getting so crowded that the two lead singers in skinny jeans or pleather tights or whatever can’t properly strut as they spout “nu-uh-uh” or “yo-oh-oh.”

Excess and excrement, that.

Talk like this can come off as sounding crotchety, outside the times. I have a healthy respect for that opinion, although I don’t share it. Just am aware. As with all other matters on which I like to electronically opine, in music I know my fair share of older folks who have a decided “with-it”ness. A favourite uncle of mine is approaching sixty, and he has not lost step with what is current in music since the Beatles were still together. Because I’m not happy with the state of popular music should not see me labeled as a middle-aged codger. I have an awareness of what is now and the ability to appreciate what is GOOD in something that is not MINE. These navel-gazing whinies with their grandiose yet simple, loud but unlistenable nonsense is the sign that, hopefully, we’re about due. That musical revolution is a-comin’. Punk did it to stadium rock in the 70s, grunge (ugh) did it to glam in the 90s, we’re about due for that two-decade shift. But be sure to grab hold and love it while you can, because it only lasts for about seven years before Hanson and the Backstreet Boys take over.

Mainstream art is at a low. All this 80s worship has us producing art like in the 80s, a decade notable for the great distances between works of relevance. Flash and dash, sound and fury, little substance.

My hope is the wheel, or the worm, is set to turn. 

The Thorny Beatles: How to Try to Like Your Parents' Band

                When I was sixteen I hated the Beatles. I didn’t know their music very well (though now I understand that there were a lot of songs I knew that I didn’t know were theirs), but I knew a lot of their story. It had been crammed into my head by overzealous Boomers.

                Here’s the truth about us Gen X-ers: while we were growing up, our Boomer parents and aunts and uncles and that guy with the long hair and the jean jacket who smelled funny (so damn many of them, y’see) decided to try and save us the bother of coming up with anything new through thinking for ourselves. Instead they just told us what was important culturally, politically, musically. They had some right to this opinion, because they’d had such an impact on the world culturally, politically, musically. A lot of the time, we reacted negatively to it because nobody enjoys being told that their own time is unimportant. Fair.

                The Beatles being the flagship of all things Boomer, they were easy to hate. Didn’t know much about them, but hated the patronizing lectures in which they always featured so prominently.

                Well, I’m all grown up now, and find myself reassessing old opinions with the help of my new “wisdom.” I just finished Jonathon Gould’s Can’t Buy Me Love, a meticulous and engrossing bio that puts the world’s most famous band in their context and assesses their impact on the time they were in, allowing their legacy to be one’s own decision. The book is a successful attempt to say “This is what it felt like when the Beatles were now.”

                I don’t love the Beatles, but I respect them. I see why they matter. I feel the same way about the Bible, professional soccer and Calculus.

                The Beatles are the epitome of 1960s music, inspired by 1950s music. I really don’t like 50s or 60s music. I hate the Stones, am tepid on the Beach Boys (yes, even Pet Sounds), don’t have much use for Dylan, and think Clapton leaving Cream was the best thing that happened to his career. I think it’s telling that the biggest band of the era broke up in 1970. They set the stage for the bands I like. That’s when I like the Beatles, when I hear them playing the stuff the 70s bands I like picked up and ran with. Zeppelin, YES, Rush, the Who and Pink Floyd (when each band got good), Neil Young’s best stuff--the 70s is where my tolerance of classic rock begins. When I like the Beatles, it’s when I hear the inspiration for the music I truly love, not what I feel obligated to listen to.

                However, I can’t help but be impressed by them. They were the first and most important of their kind, inspired by Elvis and Little Richard, then going on to cover so much distance in seven years that they set up the 70s. That was stunning, considering how far we had to come from “Tutti Frutti.” The Beatles shed a lot of water. They were making so much of it up as they went, inspiring styles and blending them, doing more parody than I think anyone realizes looking back, and sometimes making stupid, stupid mistakes (India: th’hell?).

                In recognizing their importance, I’d like to share not one but two lists with you regarding the Beatles. First:

Five Things I’ve Decided at Last About the Beatles

1. Almost everything before Sgt. Pepper is unlistenable. Oh, Rubber Soul and Revolver have some good moments, but those are when the boys were flexing their muscles and looking to shed their crappy mop-top roots. Sgt. Pepper, though not my personal favourite, deserves topping so many of the lists dedicated to the Greatest Albums of All Time (notably Rolling Stone’s). Without it, there would have been no Tommy, Dark Side of the Moon or American Idiot—no Thriller, Appetite for Destruction or Nevermind.

2. Let it Be is my favourite album. It’s their last, was released after they broke up, and was actually recorded before Abbey Road. It’s not most “true” Beatles fan’s favourite, and I think that’s telling because I like the Beatles when they sound the least like the Beatles.

3. Those vocals, my word. All four dudes sang. (Yes, that’s what Ringo’s doing. Singing.) And they did it very well, with tremendous harmonies backing each other up, and passion like no other group. To this day, I love watching Paul McCartney sing—he truly looks like he’s convincing you of what he’s saying, and that he loves every melody coming out. He and Lennon, with Harrison’s help, complimented each other very, very well. They were a pop band, and pop is about hooks. They had ‘em. And I don’t fault them for their catchiness, even when yeah-yeah-yeahing through “She Loves You.”

4. I’m a Paul McCartney fan. Harrison is second. I had thought that John Lennon was my guy, seeing as who he became in the 70s, politically, is most like myself. And “Imagine”—possibly the best song ever. But in the Beatles, Lennon was a confused acid-head with a whiney voice, some very weird songs, and infamously bad taste in women. And, yes, Barenaked Ladies, Yoko broke up the Beatles. McCartney’s songs are consistently my favourites. He also has wormed his way into my list of best bass players (not just for inspiration, his technique was and remains stellar). In the later years, it was he who was doing the lion’s share of the work, and he who was trying to hold the band together. Lennon was just doing drugs.

5. Even in the end and after, they liked each other. These guys were best friends, and they supported each other with a mad passion. They were always together, even for the first bit of the Ono-insanity. Watch clips of the rooftop performances for Let It Be: smiling, joking, howling approval at each other’s melodies. Letting Ringo sing. These guys loved each other. They told people—and call me a modern hippie, but I buy it—that all we need is love.

                Second:

The Twenty Best Beatles Songs (because I couldn’t narrow it to ten; they are the Beatles, after all)

20. “All Together Now” Awesome throw away from the Yellow Submarine Soundtrack. Go find it.

19. “Nowhere Man” A capella Beatles intro? Gets better from there.

18. “Yesterday” First of the best of the McCartney ballads.

17. “A Little Help From My Friends” Yeah, Ringo, that’s how you had a career. Decent drummer, though. Underrated.

16. “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” Dumb lyrics, but it’s one of George Harrison’s best contributions.

15. “Free as a Bird” Take a Lennon solo and have the other three work on it fifteen years after he dies, and it was where I first got intrigued. I saw the video in 1995 with my mom, her explaining all the references. It’s a great song and marks the beginning of my interest in the band.

14. “Helter Skelter” Charles Manson and U2 aside, it’s a great guitar song.

13. “Day in the Life” One of their most critically-lauded tunes. It’s a gooder.

12. “Two of Us” Let it Be’s opener sets the tone for an album that triumphs with the last track (#1 on my list).

11. “All You Need is Love” It’s that good an anthem, and foreshadowed Lennon’s later greats like “Imagine” and “Give Peace a Chance.” Simple is good sometimes (see #2).

10. “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds” No, it’s not about LSD.

9. “Come Together” Rhythm section’s dream. Paul and Ringo, bravo.

8. “Let it Be” I’ve cried listening to this.

7. “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away” So good Eddie Vedder covered it.

6. “Yellow Submarine” Ringo’s best. Inane, brilliantly so.

5. “I’ve Just Seen a Face” Manic pace for a love song.

4. “We Can Work it Out” Chorus is among their best.

3. “Day Tripper” The first of their great guitar riffs. I’d like their early stuff more if it was all like this.

2. “Hey Jude” A song with five minutes of na-na-na can still make me smile whenever I hear it. This is my kids’ favourite Beatles tune.

1. “Get Back” The Beatles sounding less Beatle-y, and a sign that I like them best for what they inspired.  

A band so good, they could be forgiven for “The Long and Winding Road.” Utter garbage. 

Top Ten Reasons Pearl Jam's Greatness Ensures Some Folks Will Remain Haters

My favorite band turned twenty this month, and it was celebrated through a tour, a documentary film, and the announcement of a new album. Yet, there are some that feel the need to hate, and to always hate, what anyone else likes. Sometimes valid points are made, but sometimes good journalists sound like that jerk in the back of Chem class who just targeted what the rest of us dug and hated it:
http://www.ffwdweekly.com/article/music/music-previews/backspacing-alt-rocks-deletion-8069/

It may be true that you should never write about someone you love or someone you hate, but then most opinions would be tepid and dull. Here, then, is a top ten list with a ridiculously long title.

10. Ten. It must suck to be permanently judged for something you did in your early twenties. But never mind the new Conservative crime bill. Ten was and remains a great album, one of the best and most important of the 1990s. The grunge faction (whoever the hell they were) felt it was too commercial. Because playing solos and having more than simple chord progressions is considered "commercial"? 'Scuse me, Mr. Cobain? Did you actually watch the video to "Heart Shaped Box?" I don't feel this is the best album of the band's career, but it is the decider. If you define them by Ten, no matter that it sold a gazillion copies, then you don't know much about them as a band.

9. They've stayed together and no one has died. If Kurt Cobain and Layne Stayley were alive today, their bands would likely not be together anymore. Nirvana and Alice in Chains were built around too simple a formula, and even some of the greater ones like Soundgarden eventually toppled. Yes, AiC has a new singer and Soundgarden is sort of back together (when Pearl Jam will loan Matt Cameron on drums), but these are reunions. The original magic is over.
     Bands built around young men's angst don't have anywhere to go when young men become older men with their own kids. Pearl Jam was built to last from step "Once." As with the other greats, they evolved, they played what suited them--and still do--in the period of life they were living.
     Aside from Andy Wood, the original singer of Mother Love Bone (the ur-Pearl Jam), they have been exceptional among the bands of their time and place for the lack of stupid death surrounding them. And further to that . . .

8. None of them has been in rehab. That's not entirely true. They've had their issues. Mike McCready  apparently got addicted to painkillers (when he was in actual pain), and Eddie smokes and also consumes gallons of wine on stage every night. They've got their addictions, but at no point in their twenty years have they had that Aerosmith stage that they barely survived. Jeff Ament was straight-edged for a while, and in the Crowe documentary, Jeff says that he wishes he could show anyone starting heroin a picture of Andy Wood as he died. Heroin use defined the Seattle movement, as acid defined the 60s, and cocaine the 80s, but these guys haven't got that particular monkey. There's no scary "I kicked it" story. Lack of drugs is boring in music, I guess.

7. Music videos? They famously quit doing them after "Jeremy." Then in '98 they released the animated "Do the Evolution." In the last years of the era where music videos still actually mattered, they steered clear of the medium. Then, they started releasing a whole bunch of basic band-playing-in-front-of-camera-or-crowd videos after 2002's Riot Act, after the music video ship had long since sailed. They are much more like their 1970s idols than their peers, for their success has come from steady albums, strong support from and of their fan base, constant touring, and radio circulation, rather than singles and videos.

6. Their philanthropy. I'll never be a big U2 fan, but I love what they do outside of music. I once was a Metallica fan, but I hate who they are offstage. Being a good citizen doesn't make your music better, but if I love your music, it's sweeter to know that you work endlessly for charities and constantly thumb your nose at conservatives and capitalists.

5. Your mom doesn't hate them. They rock, but they also have ballads. They drink and curse, and they play charity concerts. Their average set list sees covers of CCR, Neil Young, The Who and Iggy and the Stooges. Even at my age, far too many people I know base the value of what they listen to by whom it pisses off. (That's somewhat hypocritical. If Stephen Harper declared ire for any band I'd buy their catalogue tomorrow.) They're a nice band. They love their fans, do everything they can at live shows to make it live up to our expectations. My mom thinks they're pretty swell for it.

4. Their music isn't all that woeful. Oh sure, in their youth they had reams of songs about dead dads and abusive childhoods, but their most meaningfully negative vibes like "Betterman," "Bu$hleaguer" and "Even Flow" tend to be more ethically and politically motivated than mopey. They want us to be better people.
     Most music reviewers and many music fans have issues with happy bands. YES has always struggled with credibility because their lyrics are as positive as their moniker. There's no room for positivity in rock music! Pearl Jam are nice guys who love their fans, they're proactive and they write songs like "The Fixer," "Down" and "Wishlist" that are about all things good, and most rock critics just hate goodness.

3. They weren't really all that grunge. I've been skirting this one, but I hate the term "grunge." I hate the Seattle Underground myth. I hate that--for many fans of the sound of that time--the bands were only good before they hit, and Pearl Jam was a corporate (?!) creation no better than a hair band and terribly inferior to its predecessors Green River and Mother Love Bone. I hate that there was a feud between Cobain and Vedder because Cobain criticized them for not being grunge enough. Apparently, "grunge enough" ends with a shotgun blast, so who needs it?
     Grunge is a New York Times name for a rock movement. Pearl Jam was and is a rock band that once wore flannel and Doc Martins. They got big. Success is negatively correlated to popularity in the underground, to being truly grunge-y. Nirvana's survival as a grunge band came, ironically, through suicide.
     Pearl Jam wasn't all that grunge because grunge is impossible to define and remains a stupid term to use to try to encapsulate a musical culture. Pearl Jam was successful, rock, from Seattle (basically), and not willing to be a part of the corporate music machine. Take whatever grunge you will from that.

2. They haven't had a hit single in years, but they still sell. "World Wide Suicide" hit Number 1 on the US Modern Rock charts in 2006, and they've had a lot of #1s and #2s on those hair-split charts (Post Modern Easy Listening Rock Chart), but I think it's fair to say that their last big hit was the 1999, tongue-in-cheek cover of "Last Kiss." Yet they still play to packed stadiums. This is tied to my ultimate point, in that they have a staying power that few bands do. They are a slow-burning fire. They write albums and they tour non-stop. They aren't heavily concerned with singles, but they receive a lot of radio play, even of the recent entries to their catalogue.

1. Greatest Band Ever. Oh, sit down. It's a discussion, not a declaration. It's the stupidest argument in the universe. Want to keep it short? Fine: the Beatles, with Zeppelin a close second.
     Of the bands still going, it's still a long and pointless debate. U2, the Beastie Boys, Neil Young, Aerosmith, Metallica, the Who, Radiohead, the Eagles, CSN--the "old reliables" list goes on and on, and music is far too subjective and personal for a winner to ever be crowned. Pearl Jam, though, is on the list of considerables. They're steady, have never gone away, and many of those who don't love them admit a grudging respect.
     Let's just say, in a very tepid and nice way, that Pearl Jam is one of  the greatest bands ever.

I Guess I'm Old

This weekend, I spent a total of ten hours in my car with four people younger than me by at least seven years. It was illuminating. I have an eighteen-year-old sister-in-law whose text addiction borders on the pathetic. I say that with nothing but love. I have just been around her in the desperate wee hours of battery life when her world was pulling a true 2012.

Okay, the car ride. I spent the entirety of the last five hours listening--no matter how loud I turned my music--to the thappety thappety thappety of all four of these individuals texting. Constantly. Freely admitting that the conversations mostly involved "Haha" and LOL and "What are you . . ." Sad, sez he born in the 1970s.

One of them tried to defend it to me, to tell me it was cheaper than calling, and more convenient than calling, and easier when your friends live in different time zones. No sale. It was an alarming look at just how lame our communication has become.

But the most disturbed I was came when I hooked up my iPod and set it in the middle of the vehicle and said, "Have at 'er." When it was my turn, I put on an album. If we made it through eight songs, I was happy. When one of the kids took over, though, we'd hear a song or two by an artist, followed by another song or two by another. Not so bad. What drove me INSANE was the stopping of songs after less than two minutes for a new search.

That was my muffugging breaking point. Text away, lazy communicators. Facebook and Tweet to your heart's delight, you quintessential narcissists. Play only singles from the new Black Keys and I'm cool. But, DAMMIT, seriously. Let the whole song finish! It's a song, a lyrical rhythmic narrative. Am I such a dinosaur that getting on the other side of a guitar solo and bridge dates me? Chaysis!

My Lifehouse

            Earlier this month, I finally staged a version of Lifehouse, and though the venue didn’t allow me to create exactly the piece I wanted, at least I’ve scratched that particular itch. The obsession was getting a mite unhealthy.

            Lifehouse is one of the great white whales of the rock and roll world, a reference as wink-able as shouting “Freebird” at a gig and as complex in back-story as Crash Karma. It started as an aborted concept album by the Who—planned to be the follow-up to Tommy, the grand-daddy of all rock operas. It was to be released alongside a Universal film, filled with footage from the enigmatic “Lifehouse experience” series of weekly concerts at London’s Young Vic. The ambitious but ultimately misconceived project fell apart, but what was salvaged was sewn together as the band’s tightest and best album: Who’s Next. That was 1971.

            Pete Townshend, the band’s creative spring, kept pecking away at the thing over the years, adding songs, rewriting portions, reflecting on it through side projects, and at last—sort of—finishing it in 1999. This involved re-recording a double-album of all related songs and some new additions, packaged with a BBC3 radio play, all under the lofty designation: The Lifehouse Chronicles.

            Enter: me.

            Concept album, a pompous way of saying “a buncha songs strung together by story and theme.” But I love them in rock music. They combine narrative with musical composition—they’re what Wagner would’ve done with a six-string. From Tommy to American Idiot via 90% of the Pink Floyd catalogue, as long as the music is good—and many artists save their best work for these gruelling ventures—and the concept is cool, I’m into it.

            As for Who’s Next, “Baba O’Riley” is rock at its purest form, three chords at their best, and “Won’t Get Fooled Again” is simply my favourite song ever. The combined vocal powers of Roger Daltry, Townshend and John Entwhistle are far from impressive—even as far as rock goes—but any music can be made well if it’s made with passion.

            ‘Cept screamo.

            Anyway, I’ve always been intrigued by the story that “Baba” and “Won’t Get Fooled” were meant to bookend, and in my own tragically obsessive way, I’ve followed Townshend quite far down the rabbit hole. Unfortunately, Townshend is a rock star.

            The 1971 Lifehouse concept was beautiful and simple. Set in a dystopian near-future (yeah, one of those), people find interaction and stimuli coming from the Grid, a network tied into household spacesuits that most everyone lives in full time. In these experience suits, people experience nothing of reality. Then a pirate radio broadcaster begins calling the young to London, to the Lifehouse, a place where humans can interact, listen to a concert (guess Who’s?) and add their individual signatures to the overall effect.

Y’know, thanks to super-computers.  

Keep in mind it was 1971 and that most rocks stars don’t finish high school.

A Northern English farming family who don’t have these experience suits abandon their crops and get in their air-conditioned caravan in the hopes of tracking down their daughter Mary who is on her way to the Lifehouse. The family is racing the authorities—of course The Man has something against the Lifehouse—to the place just as all the young people inside are giving up their musical signatures (?), adding to the One Note (which, for the trivial of us, is an A major). Boots pound in doors of flagrant non-conformity, but just then the music reaches its crescendo, and the whole place explodes and those inside—and many watching from their experience suits at home—go poof.

Where? Open to interpretation: anywhere from being one with the music to joining God, as the One Note calls for religious comparison.

Again, 1971.

Lovely idea, though. Add Townshend to the long list of folks who supposedly invented the Internet.

I love it, there’s nothing more re-invigorating for a work of science fiction than to see its bleak predictions realized a few decades later. But it was never completed—how could it have been?—and so Townshend was constantly quizzed about it over the years. He’d add to the story, muddy it up—just to keep himself interesting. Worse, since he’s a self-absorbed rock star, every time he came at it, it reflected the sensibilities of his particular life stage more and more. 1993’s boringly autobiographical Pyschoderelict and the plodding Chronicles lose the entire concept but keep the music. The focus is now on an aging hippy and his lost dreams—Mary and the titular musicgasm are minor effects in the “Daddy didn’t love me enough” meandering scenes of the radio play. Worst of all, many of the re-recorded tunes for Chronicle are lighter, sometimes acoustic, losing all sense of the raw destructive energy that the Who bled in 1971. “Won’t Get Fooled Again” sounds like it’s been castrated. All that redeems Chronicles is a collection of synthesized “Baba O’Riley” movements that have never before been in one place.    

It’s our own fault it got this bad. We the public create this narcissism by treating artists—especially those from rock’s seminal years—like their opinions and ideas about everything matter and should be voiced. Townshend Lifehouse mess is the result of him hearing too much of his own hype for thirty years. There should come a point when a concept is public domain, because if you give any creator enough time with anything, they’ll rub the thing until it bleeds. I mean, did anybody else read the last three books of The Dark Tower?

But enough about Tonshend’s selfishness, let’s get back to ME. I’ve always wanted to stage Lifehouse—a musical drama of the original concept, plus the related Who songs before Townshend “reconceived” (read: ruined) them. This has been in my head for years.

Finally, last month I gave it a go at a performing arts summer school I teach. I had to use recorded Who music rather than a live band—possibly my own humble ensemble. Because of time constraints, I had to use the good bits—which are few—of the radio play. I had to cast a female as the pirate, losing the whole sexual dynamic between him and Mary. . . . And it was for teenagers.

Did it work?

I know I presented the other three teachers the idea of it possibly being the over-reaching theme for everything we performed and not a one of them picked up on the idea.

Yeah, but did it work?

Well, if you have to ask then you already know I’m not completely satisfied with the experience. I can, however, say that I at last staged Lifehouse. Kinda.

Maybe Lifehouse is to musical theatre what “The Scottish Play” is to conventional.

I love the music and the concept of this thing. It’s a sure sign that I’m too far gone that I am convinced I can do a better job of it than the man who originally conceived it. Copyright infringements aside, I still hope to see my dream realized, but it may be that Lifehouse’s curse is that it cannot be staged.   

2009 in Music

What a fine year.

About a month ago I posted a question on my Facebook page asking what people felt was the best year in music and if they could defend their stance. This is such a loaded question that we'd argue for years over years. There were some great posts. 1969—Woodstock? Mid-70s rockers? Beethoven completed the 9th in 1824 . . . I've always had a soft spot for 1994--but it's also because I was young and that music is full of memories. Grunge before the wave broke, and "our" Woodstock.

 

Music appreciation is shot with nostalgia and at times I try to be bigger than that, to try to appreciate something for just the merits it has on its own. In about August of this year I started to realize that '09 had been a really good year for music (this was still a month before the new Pearl Jam album!). Not to say '08 sucked, it didn't. But there's been something really special this year, certain stars aligning, whatever. Maybe with MJ dead, the musical world decided to turn it up a notch. That might be over-thinking. Here are my twelve reasons, by album but in no real order, why 2009's music has been so good.

1. Neil Young—Fork in the Road

 

In February I saw Bob Dylan live in Calgary. I'm no big fan but he only played two hits and the rest was new stuff. It made me believe that someone who's been making music for forty years just can't keep it up live. But in April I saw Neil Young in Lethbridge(?!). I went with my mom and brother. Young played his greatest hits plus three newbies, and we sang our lungs out. It was tremendous.

Young's one of my heroes. He releases an album every year and yet they're always different, usually good, often great. Fork, an ode to his electric car, is pure, guitar-driven folk-rock. It's awesome.

TASTY TRACK: "Singing a Song." A song about how singing a song won't change the world, from a guy who's released quite a few tracks that would beg to differ.

 

2. U2—No Line on the Horizon

I'll level with you, U2 was always like the Beatles to me: I appreciated their genius but I preferred their contemporaries. But four about five years I've been in a band with a huge U2 fan, and it's also helped that their two albums prior to No Line were the best they've ever made.

It's not the greatest album, but it's still pretty good. It plays like two LPs hinged together by the single "Get On Your Boots." Had I not been a recent U2 convert, this album would not have done the job. But it's maintained my like for them.

TASTY TRACK: "I'll Go Crazy if I Don't Go Crazy Tonight." Though it's lost some glimmer for me since it became a TV commercial.

3. Green Day—21st Century Breakdown

Green Day has proven that they are the greatest punk band ever. Yes, better than the Clash, Sex Pistols, Social Distortion, SNFU, Good Riddance, Rancid, Operation Ivy, or me and two guys named Shawn when I was in Grade 10. No argument, the best. And don't feed me that "the Beatles would be better than the people who copied them if they came later" crap.

I like The Who better than the Beatles, and they were playing at the same time. Green Day has surpassed any work of their predecessors and contemporaries, and they've done it with this album.

That's because they've shown that American Idiot was no fluke. They're not a one-comeback wonder. 21st Century Breakdown shows that they have mastered the art of blending three-chord hooks with social commentary. This stuff is amazing. One of the three or so albums that I've listened to almost daily since its release. Maybe it's not the seminal album Idiot was, but it's every bit as good. It is a touch smarter, and a move in an even more ambitious direction.

TASTY TRACK: Tough, tough choice. I'm gonna go with "American Eulogy," but don't miss the bonus track where they cover The Who's "A Quick One While He's Away."

4. The Tragically Hip—We Are the Same

It's funny when you think about it. Neil Young releases an album a year and I'm all over it, and he's been doing that since the 60s. The Hip, the greatest Canadian rock band of my generation, does the same and I find I'm losing track of them. They're still a great band but I feel like I've fallen a few steps behind them. It's a good album, pleasantly mellow, but I haven't listened to it quite enough to do it full justice.

TASTY TRACK: "Coffee Girl.”

5. Tori Amos—Abnormally Attracted to Sin

I think any man who avoids this woman does it because he's afraid of being gay. Or he's afraid of having his balls cut off, musically speaking. Tori Amos is a smart woman, and there's nothing that frightens some men more than a smart woman. Do I sound like I'm trying to convince myself I'm not afraid of her? Sorry. She does scare me a little, but I know I'm not gay and I know she won't cut my balls off . . . without good reason. She's so unapologetically sexual, and she purrs lyrics that push the line of every one of society's outdated gender norms. But she does it on a piano bench in a smoky room, with a short dress and a smirk on. She takes full advantage of who she is to say what she wants rather than preach.

She does it superbly on this album. She's been at this a while and she keeps getting better. Smart, sexy music.

TASTY TRACK: "Strong Black Vine"

6. Metric—Fantasies

When you discover a band that’s been around for a bit, why do people treat you like you’re an idiot? They don’t do that with books. I’ve known about Metric for a couple of years—they get a lot of airtime on the only two radio stations I listen to, CBC and X92 outta Calgary. So when Fantasies was released, I decided to pick it up and . . .whoa. Intense. This stuff is genius, a perfect mix of rock, mod and wit.

And then I saw them live. They were so passionate, pulsing with an energy that makes Iggy Pop look boring—they put it all on the line to entertain you. I’ve quickly become a serious fan.

TASTY TRACK: “Gimme Sympathy,” which Emily Haines introduced with the hope that “this is your summer anthem.” It had been mine already. Tough call, though, this album is near-perfect.

7. Dave Matthews Band—Big Whiskey and the Groogrux King

Geez, I just realized that I’m smack-dab in a trilogy of brilliant albums that formed my soundtrack to the summer.

Dave Matthews is too close to my heart for me to tell you if he can do wrong. I can tell you that with this album he’s really, really doing right, though. This holds up with his best work, and I think lyrically it sometimes transcends Crash. Wow, this is an album that constantly shows its worth. There’s never an off song. If Fantasies was brilliant and new this was somebody who’s been around for a long time showing that he’s still brilliant.

TASTY TRACK: Probably the hardest album on here for me to choose from, but I’ll go with “You and Me” because it makes me think of my wife. But really this is song for song an album of sure things.

8. Ben Harper and the Relentless Seven—White Lies for Dark Times

Ben Harper’s passionate voice, his one of a kind slide guitar skills, and his touches of southern-folk gospel have always suggested the blues anyway, so it makes sense that he took this chance minus the Innocent Criminals to record a great blues album.

They were also a pleasure to hear live. When these guys hit the stage, all eyes are on Ben. He’s Ben Harper, one of the greatest song makers of the past twenty years. But his band mates do their best to steal some attention. At the start of “Number With No Name,” drummer Jordan Richardson hammers the intro beat with maracas on his skins, then tosses them into the air, grabs his sticks and charges into the verse without missing a—well—beat.

TASTY TRACK: “Keep it Together (So That I Can Fall Apart.” I walk around the house singing this riff to myself. Waow-chucka-waow-na-na-na-waow-waow-aow-aow-aow-aow.

9. Dream Theater—Black Clouds and Silver Linings

Waiiit, did Ben Harper and Dream Theater go to the same Eastern Philosophy class this year?Regardless. . .

Pearl Jam, Green Day, Neil Young, Dave Matthews and Dream Theater are some of my very favourite musical performers. It is unprecedented that they should all release an album the same year. This one’s good—I like everything these guys do—but it’s pretty much just a re-hash of what they did on Systematic Chaos. Prog-metal ain’t for everyone, but it suits me just fine from these fellas. This one’s extra-special because there’s the album, then a bonus-album of cover songs. When you double a six-song album (granted, your average track is ten minutes) it’s pretty delightful.

TASTY TRACK: “The Shattered Fortress.” For the past ten years they’ve been including one track per album dedicated to three of the twelve steps in the Alcoholics Anonymous program. Drummer Mike Portnoy is a reformed alcoholic. Still with me? Okay, well, this song is its own glory but it’s also an amalgam of musical and lyrical themes from the earlier tracks as they bring the suite to a close. Ambitious.

10. Jervis Cocker—Further Complications

Former Pulp front man (no, I didn’t know that before I saw him live) kicks out a joyous concoction of nerd-pop so neurotic and wussy he’d get bullied by Weezer. But, man, is it witty. Sample: “I met her at the museum of palaeontology and I make no bones about it.” YES! Thank Elvis somebody’s making music like this!

TASTY TRACK: “I Never Said I Was Deep.” A ballad about a dude who just wants to get laid. Tori Amos could use Jarvis for a tooth-pick and I love them both for it.

11. Pearl Jam—Backspacer

Pearl Jam are my gods and they have new album.

They were tremendous at Canada Olympic Park this summer.

TASTY TRACK: “The Fixer” is one of the most uplifting rock songs I’ve heard in a long time. It’s about a dude who just wants to make things better. “Just Breathe” inspired some really enjoyable dinner conversation. Hey, it’s Pearl Jam—I can pick two.

12. Blue Rodeo—The Things We Left Behind

As of this writing, I’ve had this album for a day. But they’re as reliable as Dave Matthews and Pearl Jam so after a couple of listens I’m already liking it. These guys aren’t country, not rock, all good and dammit, they’re fine Canadian lads. I always thought they were “truly alternative” back in the days when alternative meant something. Which wasn’t long.

Anyway, it’s mellow. That’s okay, though, they’re aging and so am I. Pearl Jam needs to still kick it out sometimes, but these guys can do a laid-back album (a double-album no less!) after twenty-some years.

TASTY RACK: I really like “All the Things That Are Left Behind,” even though it’s essentially the title track and because it’s the first track it makes it look like I haven’t listened to the album that much. I haven’t, but it’s a good song.

So, there you have it. A fine year in music. You’re bound to disagree, you might mention Weezer has a new album (they haven’t had a good one since the turn of the century), or you may like the garbage that some screamo band or another shat out this summer. Hey, good for you. Debates are fine. These are the albums I think combined to make 2009 a very special year in music.