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Spring Sunday Morning: A Quick One

by theyoungerj

It’s too bad Ray wasn’t from Maine originally because then I could say he was our greatest musical export ever. Granted, there a few other really good bands to come out of my beloved home state, but Ray is just awesome in everyway from his blue eyed soulful voice to the super tasty production. This a Sunday morning staple for me right now.

It has been a crazy couple of months. Between things with the band getting way more busy, my new job, my old jobs, fixing the old homestead up for spring and trying to expand my social scene, I am pretty scattered right now. Granted, I have a pension for procrastination which is infamous and a continual point of contention with my brother so I am trying harder to write stuff more regularly amongst the chaos of my life. I know the Elder J is also  incredibly busy so he doesn’t notice my slackery as much which actually works against me because the guilt I feel when he give me shit actually forces me to write more.  I am sure he is not sitting around waiting for me to post stuff as he tries to move his growing family into a new home and all the other crazy stuff in his life, but I thought of this song anyway.

Love the Kinks and this song is so classic of that sound in the mid 60′s. I someday want to write a series of posts of why bands like The Kinks never got as big as the Beatles when they could of or a good one too would be how come Ten Years After never even approached the greatness of Led Zeppelin. More on that later.

I had my first day off in roughly two weeks yesterday and I spent much of it mowing my lawn and clearing out beds for my vegetables which I need to plant next weekend. I woke up painfully early after going out and seeing my lead guitar player’s sister play a songwriter’s round gig at a way too classy for me bar in the largest city of my homestate in Portland, Maine. The music was sick and the beer was expensive but good so I really relished the first sip of the West Coast IPA I ordered as soon as I could get to the bar.

Like five minutes later, in walks a school superviser and his wife in a completely out there coincidence. I guess all of our principals hang out at this specific spot so I did what I thought was necessary and got them a round. It turned into a great networking scene and I ended up being out later than I expected yet still woke up on teacher time at roughly 5:30 am. I realize I was blowing off steam from two weeks of stress, but it felt pretty whack.

Probably self explanatory.

Our first big show of the season is next Saturday afternoon. I am pretty excited since it is an afternoon show to raise money for breast cancer. It’s a bike run that has a bunch of motorcyclists pay to ride between a few different locations before meeting up at the end to eat food, have a beer, and watch our band play some tunes. A bunch of people who would never come to a show at night because of familial obligations, puritanical values or an early bed time. It will hopefully raise some more money for a good cause while introducing a bunch of my friends and acquaintances to my band. The whole biker thing is not new to us as a band, I just hope it doesn’t scare anyone who is not so familiar like my teen age cousins. Lastly, I think we can all support breasts and the saving of them.

I could not stop singing this song yesterday and the Saturday before in unison with a dude I met at my old job of banquet serving/bartending whose name is Levon and he is from South Carolina. This guy was quite a bit older than me but busted ass carrying trays while telling me some hilarous stories about living down south.

Chicago is actually an incredibly good band which is why we will end out this post with a double shot. I always saw them as this cheeey band but now I can’t really see why I would ever think this. Ok some of it is a little sharp in the cheese department, but come on, this jam right here is gold. The piano make me think of Carole King and the horn section is like funky Phil Spector production. I guess they are only behind the Beach Boys in American bands in most charting singles and albums which is a brand new fact for me. They still tour and apparently are not bad. The former lead singer/guitarist Terry Kath shot himself in the head accidentily in 1978 playing Russian Roulette with a semi automatic pistol. The man can wail but seriously, what is the thought process there? Clearly he did not grow up around firearms.

This  is the late Terry Kath tearing it apart on an extended solo which sounds like it’s got a bunch of wah-wah pedal on it which is never a bad thing for me, as much as it annoys so many others. I have to attend an adult chorus concert tonight, do you think I have any chance of hearing this bad boy getting performed?

So now it is Sunday morning and I am going to finish writing this, maybe do a little fishing before attending my mother’s adult chorus concert at three and then being home in time for band practice at six which will hopefully end by nine so I can see the new Game of Thrones episode or at least finish watching the episode from last week that I still haven’t finished. Wore me out just writing that sentence but I ultimately feel blessed that I have so many things going on that I am interested in and passionate about. I know a lot of people who waste a lot of their time from my outsider’s perspective and one day we all figure out that time is finite and you better spend it well. So on that note, spend a solid few minutes listening to this amazing cover of a an amazing song and contemplate.

Obviously really into Ray right now, again. He’s the man.

Who is Molly?

by theyoungerj

A friend who plays fiddle with my band suggested David Lindley to me a while back and has a portrait of the man in his living room where I often occupy the couch while jamming late into the night. This song gave me a very real feeling of closeness to my Father because I know he would have loved it since he held an affinity for religious tunes. Also, it’s so much better than the music I am subjected to on a daily basis as will be seen.

I have talked recently about how I have a new job. I am the long term substitute for the head of an alternative education program in the 8th grade. Both of the two teachers in the program had to leave (the last quickly), so I was shoved to the top of the ladder and suddenly had my own program.

I don’t want to get into specifics, but it has been a hard transition for everyone, most importantly the students. Most of these kids come from broken homes and have never succeeded in the traditional classroom due to a myriad of social, mental, and chemical reasons that cause them to exhibit some non-traditional behaviors. They love this song and I am constantly shutting it off throughout a normal school day on their iPads, iPods, laptops and cell phones. What happened to the Sony Discman?

The kids think I don’t know this song is about drugs. I asked them one day, just to mess with them, “Who is this Molly girl?” Although I never took this drug, whenever Disco Biscuits or Sound Tribe Sector 9 or Phish came through town in Vermont, there’d be a lot of it around and all the dread locked white kids (wookies) would be spinning around the campus greens. I was always more of a beer guy. For those not in the know, “molly” is pure MDMA, which is the active ingredient in Ecstasy and I believe a few other designer drugs. 

Some of them allegedly do drugs, which is a shame at their age and for their already suffering thought processes. Of the 16 kids in my class, I bet at least half of them have smoked pot or currently do, with half of those claiming to also do other drugs. I continually am explaining why the consumption of any mind altering substance at their age, molly or otherwise, will help to stop the development of their brains because their young minds are still forming. They almost always answer that this is only the case with hard drugs like molly or acid or cocaine and that weed and alcohol are ok and, in fact, legitimate stress relievers. I hope they don’t learn this from their parents, but I am sure they learn a lot of  it from Lil’ Wayne.

I had to explain to my assistant principal what Kush was when they played this in the gym while we shot some hoops at our daily gym time right after lunch. This is one of the things I instituted when I came in because I feel one of the issues is the kids don’t get their energy out in a positive way. He quickly shut off the stereo when he realized what the song was about but as soon as he left, back on it went while I was across the gym working on my free throws. I play the turn down or shut off game while one of them reverses it all day long.

I have never liked Lil’ Wayne, always being more of a fan of old school gangster rap like Biggy and Tupac. So much of his vocals are auto tuned and I just find that noise to be incredibly annoying. Furthermore, I find most of his messages are be about getting messed up and treating women badly which none of my students need in their lives. Now, there are many many misogynistic lyrics in the rap I like too but I didn’t listen to it in 8th grade and I could surely separate reality from fiction at that point in my life. I suspect that my students can too, but when engaged in an argument with a student on him attending French class last week, I said he was acting like a baby for refusing to go. In response, he swore at me and said  ”Do babies snort coke off of strippers asses?” I almost responded  with “No they don’t and you don’t either because you have no money and can’t even get into a strip club” but my good sense prevailed and I just walked him down to the principal’s office to cool out. There is one song they play that is from my generation, albeit still kind of stupid but at least having a good beat and funny lyrics.

This guy was huge in my home state around freshmen year of high school, but it was “Cause I got High” and “Colt .45″ and I don’t think I ever got through the album enough to hear this little diddy. I obviously can’t allow them to listen to this, but of the songs they listen to, this has the best beat and the most amusing lyrics.

I shut this song off at least ten times a day while the kids dance around to it and yell the parts with profanity louder than any other lyrics just to show people they can yell swears and attract attention. One of my favorite/worst students is a kid whose mother is dying of cancer in their trailer park while the step father does very little to help and the father having died when my 8th grader was in the 6th grade. This kid basically only has control over anything while at school so he mostly spends his days disrupting other classes and driving me nuts and occasionally sitting down and talking with me about why he acts the way he does.  Yesterday, he ran into a classroom in the sixth grade and yelled “sugar tits” and then slammed the door, prompting an email sent to me within two minutes of the crime committed  Dealing with that took up the best part of third period,  but he ended up not getting suspended and driving my stress levels up the rest of the day.

I am trying to get  a job in this school district next year so I deal with these kids as best I can to various results. My bosses think I’m doing a good job and some days I do, but I worry about these kids succeeding in the high school and in life in general. It’s more social conditioning than anything else so I wish I could play them this one rap song which will roll at the end of this paragraph. If they learn nothing else from me this year, it’s that you can’t play obscene songs in public areas and you need to use your words calmly and not yell at people. In other words, express yourself!

I could actually use this, it’s got clean lyrics! Plus, Dre says something about a subject and a predicate right?

Tupac: You Are Appreciated.

by theyoungerj

“God Bless the Dead” is certainly my favorite Tupac song and possibly my favorite rap song ever. It’s got bad-ass beats and, as an extremely white person from almost the most northern state of the United States, the lines “I was the last of G’s, pump the shit that make the white man bleed” really strike a chord with me. Although a much bigger fan of Biggy, I can say that Pac was definitely a mainstay of my high school class’s listening, he definitely wrote some more socially conscious lyrics and was definitely more publicly in trouble with the law which made me him scary to me as a youth. Tupac Shakur was one of the greatest rappers ever and like his Mama, he is appreciated.

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Spring Sunshine Playlist

by theyoungerj

I try and sing along with this because the high note is incredibly hard to hit, nearly impossible. Myself and the lead guitar player in my band try to harmonize on it as a means to practice doing vocal harmonies. Obviously, the results are not perfect but it sure is fun. I also love thecomplex production of this song because the little percussive noises really make it snap.

I can’t stop singing “Under the Boardwalk” and I don’t even like going to the beach. True Story: It always involves sand getting into everything and I am extremely pale so I can’t enjoy the sun the way most people do. After one hell of a long winter with various ups and downs and a way late season snowstorm a few weeks back, springtime is finally here. The Drifters really captured the feeling of sunshine and milling around on this track and I have had it on repeat in my head and on my PA in the band’s jam room. I am incredibly happy for the season to change and I can’t wait for summer.

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Waiting on the Keg

by theyoungerj

I have a very cool Cheers mug that I use so even if my bucket had a hole in it, I could still partake.

Some readers may remember a while back when I wrote on receiving a free half keg of Oatmeal Stout from one of my home state’s finest breweries. Afterwards, I gave up alcohol for Lent and tried to gain some clarity which I definitely found. Just yesterday I got another free keg, this one being a Rye IPA that is easily one of the best beers I have ever tasted and definitely worth the entire afternoon we spent waiting on getting it.

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Dance Music?

by theyoungerj

My band has gotten into what I would consider our first serious argument. We have been doing the covers thing to decent results and are pushing to finish our own  music while still accruing fun shows for the summer to expand our skills and social network. The only complaint we’ve had is that we need to play more dance music so people will want to get out there and shake their booties. I think we play some jamming tunes, but we decided to brainstorm as a band for some other covers we could throw in there to get people moving. This was the first suggestion by my esteemed lead singer and best friend:

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Tame Impala: There’s one in my Yard

by theyoungerj

I have already broken my commandment of writing a long post and a short post each week, but it’s not due hardly at all to procrastination. In fact, I only recently got a real job where I have to be consistently engaged and no choice but to show up everyday, but I am sure the Elder is still sour with me as he should be. I will get into the details of my new job later since I think I could write volume on it at this point. Instead, check out this song that I know my brother mentioned at some point and I heard last night on a commercial.

This song, by Tame Impala, is badass. It’s like a dirty sounding T. Rex with all the fuzz and buzz one could want from a seriously righteous sounding garage band. I had to applaud the band for making the song and my brother for catching some thing cool before me. I can’t even remember what I was doing because I don’t know what the commercial was for.

Luckily, I heard the same song the next day on the weekly Psychedelic Breakfast on the classic rock station that I listen to every single Saturday morning even if I am up the whole night prior. True story is that the only thing that keeps me from listening to this show is geographical and apparently one can listen to it online so even if I am out of the state, I can still jam to this amazing set of music.

Naturally, they have a song called “Led Zeppelin” which almost sounds like a psychedelic version of one of that huge band’s song but with like a techno backbeat. Pretty cool.

After hearing the song and then getting the name from the DJ, I immediately remembered my brother talking about the band. These Australians describe themselves as a psychedelic band so it’s excellent I heard them on the aforementioned show. The song above grabbed my attention because of the name and ended up being very cool.  I have been scanning through their songs on the YouTubes and find them to be consistently awesome. They have this classic late 60′s, early 70′s feel with some sick riffs and the psychdelia of middle-era Beatles and early Pink Floyd but with more cohesive songs. Clearly, there’s a little prog rock in there too which I obviously love. Nothing insane for guitar solos so far, but give me some time!

After numerous mentions of the word Apocalypse, I still can’t spell with the word without spell check.  

To wrap up what is supposed to be a short post, I do in fact have a tame Chevy Impala in my backyard. Over two years after his passing, my father’s P.O.S  sedan with over two hundo on the engine still remains in the vacant spot where I should have heirloom tomatoes or some shit growing.  I finally have gotten the paperwork and enthusiasm to get rid of it and hope to sell it within the month and clear up the garden space and my mind because I know the old man would want it gone if it wasn’t running. I need to reboot my iTunes account and buy the whole album by Tame Impala and figure out more songs that rock while doing my spring clean up. This one definitely sounds like the Beatles.

This sounds so much like “I’m only Sleeping”.

This sounds to me a lot like the Revolver era of the Beatles that I probably like more than any other era and a heavier dose of psychedelia then they were into at the time.  This song, with the title of “Feels like we are going backwards” makes me think about my new job in education and almost every aspect of my life right now but I feel alright about it. Sometimes life does push you backwards which really just prompts me to push a little harder and try to think of how to do things differently. Spring is here and the glass is half full so let’s get on it!

Covers in Fantasy Time #1

by theyoungerj

After writing about the Notorious B.I.G. and guitar solos last week, as well as getting some of our highest views for our blog ever, my brother and I spent some time on the phone discussing what was working and what wasn’t. I need to post more because I’m a slacker (and he needs to learn to love Primus.)

As spring approaches, I need to step up my posting because, after this terrible winter, I’ll need to be outside a lot and I have no more excuses to slack off and can even have a beer or two to celebrate now that lent is over. My goal is to write a short piece and a longer piece each week so our collective brothers’ output is more equalized and I can stop feeling like I let down my big brother/best friend. A suggestion he had was for us both to write quick posts on covers, something he’s done in long form before.

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The Notorious B.I.G.: Amazing across all socio-economic divisions.

by theyoungerj

I can’t tell you how many times I joined in with about ten white kids yelling the lyrics to this song and almost every other Biggy track I mention in this post. Just last night, I got strange looks from the slide guitar player in my band when I threw this track on after we finished up working on our original music. Not everyone got into gangster rap out here.

I love gangster rap. I talked a while back about my affinity for this genre, starting with the work of the Wu Tang Clan and now moving to the unmatched and incomparable Notorious B.I.G. Of all the solo rappers out there, I can say with earnest that Biggy is my favorite. His combination of hard core gangster and lovable family man coupled with some of the dopest beats in hip hop and often highly introspective lyrical thoughts on street life and the rap game add up to make him the reigning king of gangster rap.

How does an upper-lower middle-class Scandinavian kid from the great white north end up being such a huge Biggy fan? I think that he was such an immense talent and personality, it doesn’t matter where you are from or what color you are to stand up and recognize that this shit is the bomb. And if you don’t know, now you will know.

I watched Casino a lot as a youth and I always loved the reference to the movie in this song. This song has one of the best beats in hip hop music ever while also making an incredibly viable point about mass media and death. Would The Doors be so big if Morrison had lived? What about Jimi Hendrix or Janice Joplin? You can never tell, but it’s a good topic to explore another day!

The closest thing we have to ‘the streets’ in rural Maine is the trailer park which is where I began my education in rap music. Everyone listened to Tupac, Eminem and a slew of other hip-hop artists of varying qualities. Biggy was always a mainstay, the baby-faced gangster from the urban warfare of  Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn in the 1970′s where a 1977 power outage led to hundreds of stores being looted and many more burned to the ground. We are talking about a man who was equal parts court jester and bloodthirsty criminal. In hindsight, I think it’s this juxtaposition that makes him such an enigmatic character, thug and teddy bear. As he puts it in “Machine Gun Funk”, just because he joked and toked a lot doesn’t mean he doesn’t tote the Glock. Lyrically, not many rappers have ever come close to the eloquent and gritty nature of the Notorious.

The production on his tracks is always top notch and this is due in no small part to the skills of Mr. Sean “Puff Daddy”, aka “Diddy” or whatever the fuck he calls himself now. He was a mover and shaker in the NYC hip hop scene and brought on Easy Mo Bee to help produce this album, a genius producer who had worked with Wu Tang Clan’s GZA, Big Daddy Kane and was even behind  Miles Davis’ last album in 1992.

His lyrics  have a nice easy flow to them that allow you to actually hear them the first time and see how they fit into whatever narrative is happening in the song. This seems like an obvious trait for any rapper, but check out rap from today, such as some recent Lil’ Wayne tracks. I don’t know if I’m too sober,  but his tracks have been making less sense to me than ever before. With a recent trip to the hospital for allegedly overdosing on codeine cough syrup, it’s not surprising that his songs have made less sense.. My 8th grade students tell me he is doing painkillers too, but this is neither here nor there.

Biggie’s first album Ready to Die is one of the best rap albums ever, running a whole cycle of stories from party songs like “Big Poppa” and reflective songs like “Juicy” to a song about contemplating suicide and then doing it in “Suicidal Thoughts”. One thing I love about Biggy is the lack of celebrity guest rappers on this first album. The only one to really feature another rapper on the debut is “The What” with the incredibly talented Method Man dropping some serious rhymes. One can see why being such a fan of Wu Tang would also lend well to Biggy, but I can’t remember which I got into first. I am leaning towards the latter though. In the days of entire albums of guest stars, it’s nice to see an artist who only needs himself and a few good producers.

I have given a lot of thought as to what the appeal was to this music to me as a youth because let’s face it, I had a very easy upbringing with almost no elements of the street life. I think the answer is a multi-faceted response. First, the Notorious B.I.G. is an amazing performer regardless of the genre he makes his music in, from the lyrics to the production to the whole persona.  Biggy is the man and anyone who likes any type of music can see that. And he also pulled himself up from the streets, sold drugs and then used his experiences to pursue his greatest passion and change the rap genre forever. His gritty tales really do tell a story of a place that is scary and exciting to me, probably because I’ve never been held up at gunpoint or sold crack to feed my family. I’ve never held anyone else up either but I do love hearing Biggy rap about it.

So I don’t think it really matters where you are from, Biggy truly does pass above all socio-economic divisions. I can promise you that anyone who likes hip hop likes Biggy and even if they are rock and rollers, there is at least one song they can get into. This leads nicely to my final point. Like the Felice Brothers or Creedence Clearwater Revival doing genres of music that are not necessarily aligned with where they are from, music does not have geographic , racial, economic or any boundaries for that matter. It is perfectly ok for me to love the Notorious B.I.G. even though I am white and live in the woods, just as it’d be ok for Biggy to be into Lucky Tubb if he was alive and so inclined. Music is a universal language to be spoken wherever it wants to be. Socio-economic lines mean nothing for good music and if that’s the one thing you get out of this post then I’ll be happy. Oh yeah, and the fact that Biggy was probably the best rapper ever!

I think if Biggy had not been needlessly gunned down in the yet to be unsolved murder in Los Angeles, his music would have gone this more poppy direction. I will add that I am sure many of the violent and misogynistic lyrics are frowned upon by those who think song lyrics can push people to act out some of these terrible things. Like I’ve said before, no one has ever shot a man in Reno just to watch him die because of a song; they are surely already crazy. So, I am sorry if anyone is offended by some of this rap lyrics. The joy of the modern era is that  we all have the freedom to listen or not listen.

Why I love the guitar solo.

by theyoungerj

One of my favorite solos ever, almost certainly the favorite for the mighty Led Zeppelin. I’ve loved this one for over a decade which is not the same I can say for those old Foo Fighters records. Just listen to how he keeps building the solo until there is a climax, not unlike a sexual experience. Many people, including an interview I can now not find with Jimmy Page, have ascertained that songs like  ”Stair way to Heaven” are modeled like this for that exact reason.

The Elder and I talked about Mumford last week and he commented on my post after some back and forth that he thought most guitar solos are “superfluous ostentation” which I think is the equivalent of tail fins on a car. They look cool and add to the overall picture but don’t really do much for the ride. (He continues the debate here.)

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