In my youth, when I owned only twenty or thirty albums, I’d guess that about half of them were greatest-hit collections. I was focused on value for money, but it was also an efficient crash course on recent musical history. Many of these records, however, had a song that just didn’t seem to fit. (This was before baiting a hits collection with the latest single became standard operating procedure.)

So, my top-five selections on greatest-hits records that seemed weirdly out of place to me when I was twelve or so:

1. The Beatles, “Old Brown Shoe” (on 1967-1970 aka The Blue Album)
2. The Rolling Stones, “Midnight Rambler (Live)” (on Hot Rocks 1964-1971)
3. Wings, “Mull of Kyntire” (on Wings Greatest)
4. Squeeze, “Annie Get Your Gun” (on Singles — 45 and Under)
5. David Bowie, “John, I’m Only Dancing” (on ChangesOneBowie)

(I didn’t have any knowledge of chart history; I just knew which songs I heard on the radio.)

posted 30 November 2009 in Tasty Bits. 4 comments

From The Andy Warhol Diaries, a seasonal selection:

Thursday, November 23, 1978

I watched the Thanksgiving Day parade on TV. I guess New York really is booming–when you think that every member of every marching band has to stay in a hotel room overnight. I glued myself together and went down to work (cab $3.50) There was nobody around.

I went over to Halston’s for Thanksgiving dinner.

And meanwhile all this holiday they’re still finding more and more bodies in Guyana. They must have known that there were 900. Why were they covering it up in the beginning? How come we didn’t hear about these people before?

posted 26 November 2009 in Excerpts. no comments yet

Earlier this year, I promised to add this article to the archives of this site: my 1993 cover story for Details on Nirvana. I delayed for a variety of reasons–first among them that I find it a hard article to put in context. Reading the piece now, I’m acutely aware of my own youth and inexperience when I wrote it, and of the things Kurt Cobain told me that turned out not to be true. On the other hand, there’s lots of original reporting on one of the major bands of our time, interesting portaits of its members (particularly Dave Grohl, who has become a very different figure since then), ideas that had not yet turned into cliches (I’m thinking particularly of the fan telling Cobain that his music saved his life, and that seeming novel and overwhelming to Cobain), an after-midnight rehearsal, long-forgotten mini-controversies, an extended visit to Cobain’s house, and Grohl’s odd dream about Eddie Vedder.

Anyway, it’s finally up, for the historical record. You can read it here.

posted 23 November 2009 in Archives, Articles. no comments yet

On Sunday, I visited the Leo Carrillo State Park, just north of Malibu. This is a picture of one of the tidal pools:

I believe those elaborate patterns in the wet sand are the trails of hermit crabs.

posted 20 November 2009 in Photos. no comments yet

(New to the countdown? Catch up here.)

Two concert videos in a row! This one begins with the sound of a cheering crowd, a lonely lighter being held up, and an onscreen graphic reading “MARKET SQUARE ARENA / INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA / DECEMBER 11, 1987.” This is unusual–concert videos usually opt for an everytown approach, giving the illusion that you’re looking at footage from when the band played the EnormoDome in your town.

At any rate, we see the Market Square Arena. There’s no Reggie Miller, but the place is full of Hoosiers standing up and dancing. We’re introduced to John Cougar Mellencamp’s band, including Lisa Germano playing the song’s main hook on fiddle, and drummer Kenny Aronoff looking bald and tank-topped. (I don’t know the names of any of the other Mellencampers, and I’m not going to find out–but the guitarist is rocking a denim work shirt and the accordionist has a very fine Jewfro.)

Snapping his fingers, Mellencamp steps up to the microphone. Oh my. I had totally forgotten about this look. This was when Mellencamp went New Romantic: a fancy white shirt buttoned all the way up, an embroidered black jacket, and shaggy hair extending way beyond his shoulders.

When I started this countdown, many months ago, I did not realize the extent to which my reactions would focus on the hair. But I have seen some spectacular coiffures since then, from the high volume of Vixen to the braids of Terence Trent D’Arby to the lengthy self-fondled tresses of Jody Watley, the poodle hair of Richard Marx, and the super-mullet of Henry Lee Summer. And Cher, of course, is still in a class by herself.

It wouldn’t surprise me if some of the people on the countdown were sporting wigs, extensions, or other advanced hair technology–but I feel pretty confident that Mellencamp is rocking his own hair here, showing that in his late 30s, he still had powerful follicles. He always seemed like a meat-and-potatoes guy, albeit one with wider musical interests than the Bob Segers of the world–but it’s really incongruous to see him looking like such a dandy.

Mellencamp sings, leaning into the microphone. A female backup singer is working three maracas in each hand. Another one is content with a single tambourine. The whole band shakes their shoulders and bobs their heads in time with the music. At the end of the verse, Mellencamp strolls around the stage, clapping his hands, looking joyful. We can see that he’s got height-enhancing heels on his boots.

“This is all that we’ve learned about living,” Mellencamp and the band harmonize, just before the instrumental break. There’s a pause, during which crowd noise is mixed in–although I’m fairly certain we’ve been listening to the album track, not a live recording.

Mellencamp holds a fist upwards, and as Aronoff brings the beat back, he spins and, no fooling, does a split all the way down to the stage. Watching the video for the first time in two decades, I actually gasped at this moment–I had forgotten how limber the man was. Mellencamp knows he’s a real good dancer. He does concede, however, that some people say he’s obnoxious and lazy, and that he’s uneducated; his opinion means nothing.

We get a shot of Aronoff from behind: he’s changed from a black tank top to a bright red tank top. Now, I think Aronoff’s a marvel as a drummer and that his playing is a large part of why Mellencamp’s records jumped out at you on the radio through the ’80s, but I don’t think he’s dextrous enough to change his shirt in the middle of a song. So I am forced to conclude that they’ve edited in some other footage, either from another song in the concert, or another show entirely. (The shirt’s hue does change in varying stage lights and in general, this video is muddy and dark–but I’m confident he’s wearing at least two different shirts.)

Lots of leaping about during the guitar solo. We get a clearer view of the embroidery on the back of Mellencamp’s jacket: it appears to be a shooting star. There’s a word written in the trail of the star, but it’s very hard to make out: something like ASTROWON (not BLOOMINGTON, which was my first guess). Aronoff pounds on the drums while leaning back, arching his back. He’s back in the black tank top. Mellencamp takes the microphone for a walk, channeling his inner Sinatra.

“Check It Out” is a rueful song about growing old, watching dreams get overwhelmed by utility bills, and not learning as much about life as you thought you were going to. I think it’s aged well, but maybe that’s just because it resonates more with a 40-year-old than a 20-year-old. In retrospect, I marvel at the single’s success: a melancholy midtempo number about “future generations riding on the highways that we built” with a fiddle hook doesn’t really seem like fodder for pop radio.

Mellencamp returns the mike to its stand, and strips off his jacket. In the next shot, he appears to have also unbuttoned and disposed of his shirt, because he’s now in a white tank top, exhorting the audience. (I’m guessing this came later in the show, perhaps during an encore.) We close with shots of the crowd: standing, dancing, clapping.

The Market Square Arena was imploded and demolished in 2001, only 27 years after it opened. There’s now a parking lot where it once stood.

“Check It Out” hit #14 on the Billboard singles chart. You can watch it here.

posted 19 November 2009 in 1988. 5 comments

Byline alert: I have a short article in the new Rolling Stone on My Chemical Romance making their new album. They’re in the mixing-and-polishing stage now: I watched lead singer Gerard Way do some heavy-duty multi-tracking to sweeten the song “Trans Am” with backing vocals that he described as “1.2 seconds of Queen.”

Once again, the article isn’t available online, so if you’d like to read it, check out p. 22 of the latest issue (#1092).

Two side notes that didn’t fit into the article: (1) Gerard Way is a very fine comics writer–check out his series The Umbrella Academy, which is a surreal, funny tale of adoptive children, superheroes, time travel, mass murder, and talking monkeys. (2) The studio where MCR recorded their album has at various points over the past century been the offices for Charlie Chaplin, A&M Records, and Jim Henson. You can identify it from the street by the statue of Kermit the Frog wearing a Chaplin outfit.

posted 16 November 2009 in Articles. no comments yet

The flipwalks are more about space than time. When I look at them now, I remember the environment of downtown New York City, rather than the particular day I took a walk, but sometimes reading my notes will remind me of a time when I was jetlagged or bored or cheerful.

(If you’re not familiar with the flipwalk project: while living in New York City, I took walks of exactly one hour in duration, my route determined along the way by flipping a coin. Then I would take a photograph of whatever block I was on when the hour was up.)

This day was unusual, because it was a very important day in Michael Jackson’s life, and that knowledge seemed to be in the air wherever I went.

That’s the teaser image; for the full photograph, plus the story of how I got there (and what was the deal with Michael Jackson), click here.

posted 13 November 2009 in Photos. no comments yet

(New to the countdown? Catch up here.)

In a crowded arena, a man stands on a stage, not moving. Fans frantically wave their hands, seeking his attention, or maybe trying to remind him to continue the show. The man is looking up, with his arms by his side. Lights flicker behind him and there’s a smoky haze on the stage. He is wearing a tank top and his hair appears to be dyed blond. We cut to a close-up: George Michael, eyebrows groomed, beard stubble perfectly trimmed, earring dangling from his left earlobe–and sporting a giant brimmed hat? Well, whatever works.

This is a straight-up performance video, our first clip in the countdown set at a live concert since Pat Benatar at #78. It’s interspersed with some studio clips of Michael, both color and black-and-white: those are all filmed against a stark white background, and feature the camera doing whip pans every few seconds to provide extra movement. It closely resembles the footage in the “I Want Your Sex” video (a 1987 single, not seen in this countdown): I always assumed they stuck a hat on Michael to differentiate it and stuck it in the can for a year. (In the interim, Debbie Gibson started sporting a very similar hat.) On the other hand, since this was the fifth single from Faith, that would be an unusual amount of advance planning; they could have gone back to the same director or replicated the setup.

One hint that nobody expected this song to be a single: it got remade before being released to radio (and MTV). I thought that Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis had remixed it, borrowing the playbook from Nile Rodgers for his remix of Duran Duran’s “The Reflex,” but it turns out they cut a new version of it. (Jam said they got hired based on a remix they did of “Nasty”: “George… liked it because he’s into chords. But whenever you put chords on something, it’s hard to make it funky. And he observed… that we had put chords on it [and] somehow kept the funk in.”) So Jam and Lewis recorded a new backing track, speeding up the tempo, filling out the sound with more bass, and adding a breakbeat intro–and monkey sound effects. Michael re-sang his vocals in Los Angeles, during breaks from his tour rehearsal. “We would have done it in Minneapolis,” remembered Jam (in Fred Bronson’s Billboard Book of Number 1 Hits), “but he had been on vacation in the islands, and he didn’t want to go from 90 degrees to 10 below zero.” (The final vocal track includes samples from the original version.)

The video rolls on, which means that George Michael dances. He doesn’t have a wide variety of moves. Basically, Michael has two options: he can do a spin, or he can do a side-to-side shimmy, which he garnishes with various arm movements, such as pumping his fists in front of his crotch. He executes his steps vigorously, and he’s got a strong enough sense of rhythm that it works out fine.

Lots of quick cuts. In the studio shots, Michael is working a white button-down shirt, suspenders, and that hat. He looks a bit like a rabbinical student who’s headed out for the disco. He stares into the camera and looks intense while he lipsyncs.

Onstage, he’s got a variety of outfits, all with blue jeans: a leather jacket covering a black tanktop, a denim jacket, and the white shirt/suspenders combo. He looks like that same rabbinical student three months later, after he’s figured out he’s never going back to school. He spins around and falls to his knees. He runs back and forth across the stage. He does so much running that I worry he’s missed a bus.

“I’ve had the rest / Now it’s time I had the best,” Michael sings, recapitulating the slogan found on 80% of all pizza boxes. This odd plug for a large pie with pepperoni and mushroom aside, “Monkey” remains an excellent song: a funky pop treatment of having a loved one with an addiction. Like all good pop songs about addiction, it makes the disease sound just as compelling as the cure.

Onstage, Michael claps his hands, swings his left arm around like he’s lassoing somebody, and bunny-hops backwards. It’s hard to remember that people at the time really thought he was straight. During an instrumental break, we get ten relatively uninterrupted seconds of Michael dancing: very simple moves, including some rudimentary mime and a lot of butt-wiggling. But he remains drenched in charisma–whoever choreographed him worked really well with his skill set.

Michael boogies with his bassist (black, long braids, blue Mao jacket) and they do a little follow-the-leader routine. He then pretends to lust after one of his female backup singers (black, extensions, miniskirt), motioning as if he’s running his hand up her leg. Thousands of people cheer. More running, more spinning. The cuts get quicker–no small feat, given how overcaffeinated the editing style was already.

The music has a key change. Lots more running. We get our first distinct shot of an audience member: a quick glimpse of a blonde girl clapping her hands. The video ends with a crane shot: the camera pulls back across the ocean of fans like a trawler that’s caught enough fish for one day and is heading back to shore.

“Monkey” topped the Billboard singles charts for two weeks. You can watch the video here.

posted 12 November 2009 in 1988. 5 comments

The “I” in that movie title was Valerie Solanis Solanas, who appears nine years later in this excerpt from The Andy Warhol Diaries:

Friday, July 8, 1977

By the way, Valerie has been seen hanging around the Village and last week when I was cruising there with Victor, I was scared I’d run into her and that would be a really weird thing. What would happen? Would she want to shoot me again? Would she try to be friendly?

posted 9 November 2009 in Excerpts. 4 comments

Taken below a large billboard on Highland Avenue in Los Angeles.

posted 6 November 2009 in Photos. no comments yet