Kicking Your Monday Off On A Mellow Note

A well-worn cliche in music is that what's not said or heard in a song can be as important as what's heard. A textbook version of this is Dylan's "Most of the Time."

I initially heard this one from one of the scores of Dylan "bootleg" releases (the excellent bootleg series that included his Oh Mercy/Time Out of Mind/Love and Theft period). But the song was familiar enough for some reason, and it was only after a bit of research that I discovered it was featured in a pivotal scene in High Fidelity, a movie that all music geeks should have in their collection.

Pay no mind to the slightly glossy video and production. The song itself is among Dylan's best, and unfortunately buried in one of his lesser albums (Oh Mercy). It's pure late-era Dylan. A woman wronged him. And you're hearing the voice of a man with a scarred heart.

Of course, according to the song, things are going OK.

"Most of the time I'm clear and focused all around

Most of the time I can keep both feet on the ground"

His resilience continues....

"I can handle I stumble upon / I don't even notice she gone

Most of the time"

Of course, the key is "most of the time."

His bitterness grows, but never in a wallowing self-pity tone. He even goes as far as to not give her a name.

"I can survive and I can endure

And I don't even think about her

Most of the time"

The "most of the time" is the stuff that tears you up. It's the reason Dylan spent a bit more time emphasizing "her" - adding a slight growl at the end. For true effect, go to the original recording from "Oh Mercy" - and let the final atmospherics by Daniel Lanois engulf you.

SOL Returning Monday due to burnout

As you probably have guessed, we haven't been doing the best in getting stuff pushed daily. Scott has a wicked cold. I've had three articles due....tonight - and a hellishly brutal workweek. So SOL will be taking a hiatus this week due to burnout.

But I feel bad not giving readers something, so in the spirit of the reason for the brief hiatus...

Sometimes The Bad Guys Win - NSFW

This past week was a test. Work had me there until 7 at night. Then a few hours of take-home work. Meaning I left my dog at home to fend for himself and...hold it - for a full 11 hours. I had deadlines at my newspaper I freelance for - and I couldn't get near the progress I wanted on two stories I was writing. If stress can make you sick, I was living proof on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

Then I heard about the senseless tragedy at Rutgers where a student took his life after an intimate moment was filmed without his knowledge - and then posted to the Internet. A combination of sleep deprivation and stress has a way of scrubbing your nerves saw, leaving you exposed to the slightest negativity. And in this situation, I went for my "go to" song, Jarvis Cocker's "Running the World."

The song was written in response to the relative lack of interest/impact of Live 8. The song's striking cynicism was enough to make Blur's Damon Albarn to publicly chastise Cocker for the song. But I defy Damon to answer whether or not he's ever felt what Cocker was singing about. Over a simple, mournful piano chord, Jarvis keeps the drama to a minimum, going with a plainspoken delivery:

"Well did you hear, there’s a natural order.

Those most deserving will end up with the most.
That the cream cannot help but always rise up to the top,
Well I say: Shit floats."

He then surveys the damage of a worldwide economic crash (a year before it actually happened even!). If these were spoken by any other angst-ridden singer or even co-worker or associate, you may tire of its perpetual bleak outlook, but Cocker manages to give it a weary elegance.

"Now the working classes are obsolete,
They are surplus to societies needs,
So let ‘em all kill each other,

And get it made overseas."

The final verse is almost a rip-off of The Clash's "Know Your Rights" where Joe Strummer said "You have a right to free speech - as long as you're not dumb enough to actually try it". Cocker's version:

"And if you don’t like it? Then leave.
Or use your right to protest on the street,
Yeah, use your rights but don’t imagine that it’s heard, Oh no no"

The vulgar chorus is the shock value, but honestly, the song is so well structured, I would have been fine with Cocker singing "Jerks are still running the world." Just what he said was a bit more effective. And I praise him for having the stones to release a song as beautifully bleak as this.

Speaking of beautifully bleak, the song plays in the credits of one of the best films of the last decade, Children of Men. If you haven't tracked it down yet, by all means do so. Your future college-aged sophomore geeks will be obsessing over this movie just as geeks today obsess over Blade Runner.

A Road Less Travelled?

Ever have one of those days where the person in the gaudy car cuts you off with an illegal driving tactic despite you doing the speed limit? 

Ever feel like you're content just being average because you know how to be happy with being modest? 

Well, as a guy who runs www.GHOSTBUSTING.net and dressing like a Ghostbusters ever so often,for things like Halloween, it might be a little hard to believe that I am happy with being modest and working with what is average. 

Anywoo, tonight I present to you a song by a band called Dredg. See, a year ago I was transferred with my job and ended up bumping into a childhood friend of my older brother. Buddy and I have some stories that go way back and other stories; well I embellished a lot on the past experiences that Buddy and I had from getting kicked out of Sunday School to getting wounded in the face with a Ninja Turtles' pizza thrower. Since I was working with Buddy for a while, I got to pick up on some of his tastes in music and honestly, I'm rather jealous of the amazing collection of bands that he has in his playlist. 

One of them being Dredg. And Dredg has an amazing song about modesty and being content. 

What Just Happened?

I'm very dark and poetic; sometimes gothic. I'm sure Sean would second that statement about me. I mean, my music collection goes from Stabbing Westward to Gravity Kills or Depeche Mode to The Cure or Kill Hannah to The Birthday Massacre.

But sometimes, sometimes, I can be happy. Like I might toss on something to my playlist that has nothing to do with being sad. Can you imagine that?

Well, she just happened to cross my mind. The powerful sound of ska from The Mighty, Mighty Bosstones just happened.

"Check" This Out

I'm at my desk, listening to Sound Opinions (soundopinions.org). This week's program is about sophomore albums that WORK. Usually, a band succumbs to the dreaded sophomore slump. It could be for various reasons. My gut reaction is that a band's first album is an album that has to be made for the band. The band will oftentimes have to drudge through their day or night shift jobs, sink their money or non-money (credit cards) into making the album. These albums inevitably showcase a band at their hungriest.

Then, if they're lucky, success happens. In some cases, they don't have anything left to say. It's the same thing that hangs across great writers - as great as they are, they may only have one album in them. In other cases, a band gets lazy or complacent. They go from selling t-shirts at the back of their cars to pay for the gas to go to the next town, to having everything handed to them. And with the inevitable record contract comes the burden of releasing an album out of obligation.

But some artists are able to transcend this sophomore slump. Think Radiohead's The Bends, think Cowboy Junkies The Trinity Sessions, think Morphine's Cure For Pain, and think A Tribe Called Quest's The Low End Theory. Two great genres separated by a huge generation gap, jazz and hip-hop, find a great marriage with The Low End Theory. "Check The Rhyme" is one of those songs that if anyone hates hip-hop, I defy them to listen to it and not be at least partially swayed to not discredit the entire genre. Sophisticated, flawlessly executed and just plain fun, "Check the Rhyme" is a high point in '90s hip-hop.

A Tad of Regret

The raspy vocals Mark Oliver Everett are an instrument in themselves but the lo-fi band known as The Eels  is more than just Everett's vocals. So with that part said, I'm going to move to the next part and actually introduce today's SoL; which is obviously going to be from The Eels. The song? Well, it's "I'm Going To Stop Pretending That I Didn't Break Your Heart."

One of the great things I love about The Eels is the fact that their songs always keep up the same consistency of Everett's vocals, the plucking of guitar strings, and melancholy.

Anyway, sorry about the short posts and lack of involvement lately - getting ready and pumped up for a series of comic book conventions and the year anniversary of www.GHOSTBUSTING.net!

-Scott