James Taylor "Never Die Young"

Yesterday I wrote about segues. Today I’m writing about car wrecks.

A “Car Wreck” or “Train Wreck” is common slang in radio for a segue that just doesn’t work. One song crashes into the other, and does a disservice to both tunes, and anyone with ears.

When a real life car wreck happens on the Island, it’s major news. The terrible tragedy in Vineyard Haven just a few days ago, is on the mind of every Islander I speak to.

There are no traffic lights on the Island, and there are only a few places where you can drive 45mph, and no place where you can go faster. So while I’m sure if you live in a place where there are highways, you’re used to seeing crashes, here on the Island, the rare occasion there is a vehicular death, is a shock to the community.

When I was working mornings on the air, I’d have to do a lot of segues, from music to games to news to commercials. And too often, I was only a half-step ahead of where I needed to be.

On this particular morning, though I was doing my breaks and playing the Morning Moviequote and such, my mind was on a car accident that had taken the lives of a couple local high school students. A terrible, tragic accident.

I knew that the community would be listening for details of the developing story, so I was taking extra care to pre-read the copy, to make sure I delivered it with the proper amount of gravity and respect.

But looking ahead, I did not have my eye on the ball. I was not thinking about that last song, cued up to lead into the news.

We were already halfway through the track, when I realized that “Never Die Young” was a terribly awkward song to segue into the news. It’s not a disrespectful song on its own, but the mere fact of playing it seemed like it was some cheap way to capitalize on a most heartbreaking story. But it was too late. The song was on and there was nothing I could do, except do it.

I made the segue, “That was James Taylor’s ‘Never Die Young’ on mvyradio. Now it’s time for the news. Two Martha’s Vineyard youths lost their lives yesterday . . .”

I made the segue, but it was a car wreck.

Rolling Stones "Honky Tonk Woman"

In retrospect, she was almost like a premonition of my own life.

I was young. Not long out of college. And I’d met and started dating this woman, who was a DJ. Which made her instantly cool. She was older than me by about 10 years. Which, to the young man I was, was pretty cool too.

And funny enough, during the time we were dating, she was promoted to the position of Program Director. She was pretty ambivalent about the promotion.

“I’m worried that being the boss means I’m going to get to spend less of my time doing the part of the job I love,” she confided. She spent a lot of time talking to me, puzzling over it.

As that young man, I had no idea what would become of me . . . that a few years later, I’d become a DJ. And a decade later, I’d be faced with the same decision---should I accept a PD job, at the risk of having the administrative work overtake the time I could spend being creative?

Ultimately, in our own time, we each decided to accept the job. And though I have no idea what happened to her and if she came to embrace her choice, I know I’m glad I did. Being the Program Director is an amazing challenge and a rich, rewarding experience.

But, no matter how gratifying it is to steer the mvyradio Programming ship, I think my heart, and I’m sure her heart, will always be in the studio.

When I think about those conversations we had, we’re in the On-Air studio at her station. They had these very State Of The Art (for 1992) CD players, that could cue a song up, to the fraction of a second.

And I remember her discussing, with one of the other music-focused DJs, where to start “Honky Tonk Woman.” Should it start where the kickdrum and cowbell really kick in? Or before that, with the couple of clicks of cowbell, which, they were arguing about, were barely audible. The crux of the conversation was, Which starting point was going to sound better, as it mixed with the song on the air just about to end?

All these years later, I have realized that professionally and personally, that’s really what it’s all about isn’t it.

Segues.

The Beatles “Old Brown Shoe”

Seminal Moments . . .

The whole point of this blog is to write about the songs around me, that have effected me in one way or another. There are hundreds, maybe thousands of songs in my life, that have some kind of story attached, or make me think of something specific.

But at the top of the list, there are a few songs that are truly life-changing. Their impact on me, was big enough to alter the course of my life, in sometimes major ways, sometimes subtle ways, but always in definable ways.

I was going to do a week’s worth of Seminal Moments, but there are probably more than five, so I’m going to sprinkle them in, here and there, as they strike me.

Here’s the first one . . .

At some point in my elementary school years, I discovered two things---Casey Kasem and my parents’ record collection.

I’ll have to write more about Casey Kasem in another post---he was definitely an influence---but listening to his Top 40 Countdown every week, brought statistics to music. My Dad was a baseball coach, so I already understood the importance Stats, in appreciating and understand the impact of something.

Around this same time, I graduated from Sesame Street records, to hunting and pecking through our small stack of vinyl. No surprise that I found The Beatles there.

Dad had the Blue album, which was a multiple record set of the hits from the 2nd half of the Beatle years. I listened to those records over and over, reading the lyrics, staring at the album cover, absorbing the music.

One night at dinner, I asked my parents, “How many number one hits did The Beatles have?”

It was a perfectly natural question, in my mind.

If I had said, “How many home runs does Jim Rice have this year?” or “What’s Carlton Fisk’s batting average?” Dad would have answered that without missing a beat.

But “How many number one hits did The Beatles have?” provoke unsure looks.

“Uh. I don’t know. 50?”

I can remember being shocked that my perfectly natural question, had stumped my parents.

I learned two things that day.

My parents apparently didn’t know everything.

I might just grow up to be a music chart geek.

Loudon Wainwright "Talking New Bob Dylan"

I love being inspired by just listening.

Heard this song today, and I got inspired for a Hot Seat.

We have this show called "The Hot Seat" and each week a different DJ or guest hosts the show, and goes free-form for an hour, usually on a theme. I think it will be a pretty entertaining hour to do 60 minutes of Talking Blues.

Sure, it'll be several Dylan songs, but there are a bunch of fun "Talking" tunes in the Dylan style, from folks like Todd Snider, and Loudon, who had me howling in the car as I drove to work.

So look for that show down the road. And if you have any Talking Blues suggestions, let me know.

Crowded House “Chocolate Cake”

I guess I know how America feels about an American criticizing America, while in another country. America answered that question when the Dixie Chicks criticized President Bush, while in Europe. Cue the firestorm. Followed by the commercial abandonment of their records.

What about the reverse situation? A non-American comes to America, and criticizes it. Does it merit a firestorm? A commercial abandonment?

How much room does an outsider have, to criticize? And how smart is it to do so?

I guess my two-part questions gets two different answers.

Probably the only way to get an objective view of yourself, is to hear how other people view you. It doesn’t make every description of you automatically correct. But it’s nearly impossible to be objective about yourself.

Describe yourself.

Are the things you just said, things you realized about yourself, or were they things that you realized because someone else described you that way?

So it’s kind of incumbent upon us, as Americans, to listen to how an outsider who comes to America, views America.

On the other hand, it’s probably commercial suicide for a non-American artist to do so.

Because as catchy as “Chocolate Cake” is, and as accurate as it may or may not be about American consumerism, it’s hard to imagine the average American citizen swallowing this bitter slice of satire.

Actually, it’s not hard to imagine. Here are the facts. Although “Woodface” is consistently pegged as Crowded House’s best, most critically acclaimed album, with “Chocolate Cake” as the first single the record made no particular impact in the U.S. when it came out in 1991. But it IS the record that broke the band in Europe.

So the answer to the two-part question, rests in which question you’d rather answer.

Rodrigo Y Gabriela "Hanuman"

There are no words . . . **





** Get it? A) This is indescribably cool. B) It’s an instrumental. C) It makes for a really easy-to-write post. Triple-word score!

Garbage “Vow”

Thinking about last week’s Neko Case post, and the YouTube video that went with it, brought me back a decade and a half, to the Orpheum in Boston.

We had gone to a WFNX (the alternative station in Boston) event. You know, one of those throwdowns where the local radio station twists the arm of a few labels, to put on a free show featuring some of their bands. The shows are usually an eclectic mishmash of artists---you go for one particular band, and end up seeing some others you might not have otherwise.

We were hanging in the front row of the balcony, enjoying Black Grape and our faves, Letters To Cleo. We figured since we were there, we’d watch the headliner, Garbage.

“We” was me, my sister, her then-boyfriend (and now husband) and my girl friend. Not my girlfriend. Just a friend. You know how that goes.

I liked Garbage’s records well enough, though I don’t know that I would have gone out to see them specifically.

But seeing them live, there was certainly much more going on. Maybe it was the really understated, ace playing of Steve Marker and Duke Erikson. Or maybe it was the near mechanical precision of drummer Butch Vig. Or maybe . . .

“Uh, PJ. Maybe you want to close your mouth . . .” my friend suggested.

Yeah. Shirley Manson. In big boots and a short skirt. Red hair whipping around. Moving, strutting, grinding, vamping in a way that I couldn’t take my eyes off of.

“C’mon. Her moves are so cliche, it's practically scripted. You’re really falling for that?” she asked.

Umm. Yes.

After a minute of back and forth, I had to bring in my sister and her boyfriend.

“Is Shirley Manson really sexy, or fake sexy?”

My sister said something dismissive. I don’t remember her exact words, but they were along the lines of, “She’s dancing like a woman who’s doing a performance of what some man told her a sexy woman should look like.”

There was a pregnant pause, and then my future brother-in-law said:

“It worked on me.”

Me to.

Tallest Man On Earth "King Of Spain"

There was a time, several millennia ago, it feels, when I didn’t know the music of Steve Earle. My roommate at the time was a big fan, so we loaded up some Earle discs on the stereo, and we drank beer and listened.

There was something so familiar about his music, but I couldn’t quite place who he was sounding like to me, until “Hardcore Troubadour.”

“Springsteen. He sounds like Springsteen. What Springsteen song does this sound like?”

It was driving me nuts, because I knew it, I just couldn’t quite place it.

Then I got it:

“Rosalita!” and just as I said this, Earle sang the line:

He’s the last of the all night, do right,
Hey Rosalita won’t you come out tonight.
He’s the last of the hard core troubadours.

And it made me like Earle so much, because he wasn’t just a guy who sounded like Springsteen, doing a song that sounded like a Springsteen song. He was a guy who knew he sounded like Springsteen, doing a song that sounded like Springsteen song. That acknowledgement immediately diffused a possible dimissal of Earle as a blatant copycat.

And that only needed to be a temporary pass, because in the years since, Earle developed a distinctive voice and a style that obliterated any need to compare him to Springsteen.

Now if I may quote Arlo Guthrie . . . “But that’s not what I came to tell you about . . .”

Barbara pointed me in the direction of this European artist called The Tallest Man On Earth.

Though I found the song charming from the get-go, there was this moment when I started to say to myself, “Okay, Mr Tallest Dylan Impersonator . . .”

And he sang the line: “I’ll wear my boots of Spanish Leather, while I’m tightening my crown . . .” and I had the Steve Earle experience all over again.

So, Tallest Man On Earth, you have charmed me for now. Go forth, and develop your own distinctive voice and style, and I will love you always.

(Hear clips of "King Of Spain," "Hard Core Troubadour" & "Rosalita")

Neko Case “This Tornado Loves You”

I’ve always found it counter-intuitive, from a Darwinian perspective, that so many people are attracted to danger, to things that are clearly unsafe, to trouble.

I have managed with a fair amount of success, to steer clear of relationships with volatile, unstable people. The ones my mother warned me about.

But we certainly all have friends who have dated the wrong person. Or perhaps who constantly date the wrong person.

From the friends who become entangled by Drama Debbie girlfriends, to the very serious situations involving domestic violence, too many nice, sane people get caught up with someone who is just not stable.

And, even more terrifyingly so, too many of these nice folks find the danger attractive.

I have never been one of those people. Until now.

There is no logical reason for the below video to heighten my attraction to Neko Case. And yet, inexplicably, it does.

Case is quite forthcoming, in her art, about being a bit dangerous, like in the song, “This Tornado Love You.”

But the “I will Fuck You Up” posture of this in-concert scene has some strange magnetism.

The laws of attraction just don’t seem to play by the same rules as the laws of nature.

Paul Westerberg “First Glimmer”

Does it help or hurt, to know too much background about an artist?

On the one hand, additional information can fill in some details that may have eluded you. On the other hand, those details can eclipse---and sometimes deflate---your own interpretation of the song.

I’ve always thought Paul Westerberg did a great job in this song, creating a particular “late summer/lost summer” mood, in his tone and in the particulars of the scenes in this song.

Do you remember me long ago
Used to wear my heart on my sleeve
I guess it still shows

We watched the sun fall down and
I hop on my bike; still that night

You're my first glimmer of light
You were my. You was my first
Glimmer of light

It manages to be cinematic and intimate at the same time, this image of the narrator pulling his love onto the back of his motorcycle at sunset in summer.

A few years after first hearing this song, I read an interview with Slim Dunlap, who used to be in the band The Replacements with Westerberg. Dunlap was saying that he sees Paul around town, semi-regularly, on his bike.

As in bicycle.

Dunlap was saying that he sees Westerberg pedaling around town.

So now, when I hear him sing “I hop on my bike” I don’t see a Harley, I see a Schwinn.

“First Glimmer” becomes less “Purple Rain” and more the "Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head“ scene from "Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid.”

It’s not necessarily a bad thing. The song actually becomes a little sweeter because of it.

But the change came, because I knew too much.