October 2006 Archives

We were having one heck of an Indian summer,  with the dry, hot weather lasting deep into October. Then, Sunday morning the fall arrived with a vengeance. The sun completely disappeared, the air was wet, and the temperature must've dropped 40 degrees in a day.

While its always sad to see the sun go, I have to say that fall is the best time of year for downbeat ballads.

If I had to pick only one song about fall and the coming of winter, it would be "Autumn Leaves." There many great versions of this stately ballad, but I'd go with Duke Ellington's elegant, funereal reading of "Autumn Leaves" as the single best. Be careful though -- listening to this haunting torch song could result in you curling up into a fetal position until spring rolls around again.

Ellington's "Autumn Leaves" features the striking violin work of Roy Nance and vocalist Ozzie Bailey singing both the original French lyrics by Jacques Prevert (the original song is called "Les Feauilles Morts," or "dead leaves")and the equally morose English translation written by Johnny Mercer.

For some reason, jazz critics hate it when the Duke covers standards. Ellington did this relatively often, mainly to showcase the considerable talents of his star soloists. Listen to how beautiful this version of "Autumn Leaves" is -- jazz critics can be even stupider than rock critics. Thankfully, Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn were always smarter than their critics.

I fired up Rhapsody today and found that almost 20 Dean Martin albums had gone live.

You know how the kids are -- one minute they are clamoring for the Strokes and the White Stripes and then the next thing you know, they are howling that we need to give Dino some more digital love.

These records split the difference between Martin's tenures at Capitol and Reprise, and go from creamy ballads to up-tempo tunes to Mediterranean numbers. Dino was also a surprisingly good country crooner.

A nice thing about Dean Martin was that he could be sleazy with such a twinkle in his eye that even swollen ankled  grandmothers could appreciate it. If you don't believe me, check out his version of "C'est Si Bon." His extended vocal riff at the bridge (around 1:20) is not to be missed. Nor is his bit at the end.

My favorite duet Martin did has to be "Open Up the Dog House (Two Cats Are Coming In)" with the great Nat "King" Cole. These two are such charmers that they even make various addictions and spousal abuse sound like frolicsome fun. (We don't make the news, people, we just report it).

Dino had a great voice but he had an odd singing problem -- he would often get lost in a melody and forget where he was. He was always forgetting lyrics too. But his easygoing sense of humor and improvisational skills ended up carrying  him through. He also sang very nicely in Italian during an era when millions of Americans still spoke the language (like Spanish is spoken here today).  As a matter of fact, Dino once infamously cursed out a guest on his popular TV show in Italian. The network was besieged by complaints from swarthy and olive-skinned people who actually understood the physically impossible phrase that he muttered.

Even though what Dino said was really vulgar (even by today's low standards), his show wasn't canceled and he didn't lose any of his audience share.

There were many bad things about the past. But it turns out that there were some pretty good things to.

That Dean Martin could get away with so much and have Middle America love him for it was definitely one of the good things.

By now, everybody knows that CBGBs is no more.

I've never been to CBGB's. I did, however, make a playlist of some of the amazing acts who got their break at the New York dive.

I grew up in a border town south of San Diego. We didn't need CBGB's. We had a rockin' night club of our own. It was called The Country Bumpkin and was located across from a big tomato field that would one day spawn a mini mall. I went inside The Bumpkin as often as I went to CBGB's.

The Country Bumpkin was normally a southern rock bar where Navy recruits and bikers could fight each other in ignorant harmony, but on weekends rock acts would play there. Most of these bands were on the descending part of their careers. So, Black Oak Arkansas and Uriah Heap were two bands that played The Bumpkin. Even at age nine I was feeling sorry for them for having to play in I.B.

It got even worse -- these bands would play the Bumpkin on a Friday or Saturday night and then they'd have to go up to San Diego and play the swap meet on Sunday. Rock'n'roll is a hard life.

A couple of years after Bat Out of Hell sold gazillions on 8-track alone, the mighty Meatloaf himself was reduced to playing the Bumpkin. I've never been a Meatloaf fan, but that's one guy who never gave up on his dream, even though that dream must've sucked for a pretty long stretch.

At the same time, I actually thought the bands playing across the country at CBGB's were big, mainstream acts. A hip friend of my mother's brought over Patty Smith's debut for us to listen to. Some acts, like Patty, the Talking Heads, Iggy Pop, and early Blondie, were even getting some airplay on KPRI (which was had a more open minded song-add policy than KGB, San Diego's bigger classic rock station).

My older brother was so into bands like the Ramones and Richard Hell that when my family went to see the Paul Newman movie Slap Shot, I literally thought the Ramones were playing the Hanson Brothers (the Hanson Brothers kind of resemble the Ramones, I tell ya!).

My brother eventually brought home an amazing newspaper style magazine called New York Rocker. I'm telling you, the only music rag that has ever came close to it has been Mojo and Creem. The NY Rocker liked all sorts of music in that magazine, not just punk.

The thing is, records by acts like the Dead Boys and Suicide were actually in mainstream record stores at the time! They were big label product. The old label fatcats who signed them didn't know that the American youth didn't want anything to do with any of them. (Blondie, of course, eventually got HUGE. Blondie deserved every good thing that has ever happened to them and many less bad things).

So, even though I never even wanted to go to the famed "birth of punk rock" club, making that CBGB's playlist was a pretty nostalgic act for me. The one artist I never knew was a part of the NYC scene at all was Steve Forbert.  A couple of songs from this CBGB period, like Patty Smith's "Dancing Barefoot" and Iggy's "I'm Bored" were spun on KPRI for a few weeks (exciting weeks), but Steve Forbert's "Romoe's Tune" became a big hit and was played on FM radio for years.

I like that there used to be a time and a place where the comic book punk Joey Ramone and the preppy David Byrne would hang out and drink beer together. I like the fact of CBGB's even better now, knowing that a sensitive folkie type like Steve Forbert was hanging out with them.

Thanks for being there when you were, CBGB's.

By Tim Quirk

My last post explained some of the thinking that went into the 500 tracks we put on our new Sansa Rhapsody device, and admitted we know nobody's gonna like every last one, so we made the ones you hate easy to remove, and came up with a way to feed your device new songs you'll probably like more.

I had promised to explain exactly how we're gonna do that with this post, but it's going to sound enough like a commercial in a minute, so suffice it to say there are these things called Rhapsody Channels on there that update with new material based on what you tell us you like, and what you tell us you don't.

After taking an extended beach vacation, it's back to the Rhapsody Compound for me.

The first thing I discovered was that Bobby "Boris" Pickitt's timeless "Monster Mash" finely went live on Rhapsody. It turned out that Michele K-Tel was so excited when she saw that "Monster Mash" went live, that she built a new Halloween radio station just in time for the holiday. Her groovy/ghouly radio station should go live tomorrow.

While I enjoy dancing monsters as much as the next guy, my beach vacation actually resembled the great Beth Orton video for "Conceived", only with more waves and seals.

Forget about hip-hop pool parties. Basically, all music videos should have rabbits in sweatbands playing the drums. The two mice playing the hammer dulcimer is also a nice touch.

The Orton video reminds me of Emmet Otter's Jugband Christmas as well as the Muppet Show.

I would've went on an extended animal rock frenzy if it wasn't for the fact that one of my all time favorite songs went live on Rhapsody when I was away. Of course, I am talking about Carl Douglas' immortal "Kung Fu Fighting." Man, that song is magic.

OK, I gotta go teach my dog some more lightning quick kung fu moves.