Coffee Table Rock Candy.

Such sweet business is the Big Band Era. I'm almost finished the first disc of the set and am overjoyed with the places it's taking me. I'm sure you know already how much I love this sort of music, Sinatra-phile that I am, but this collection introduces an awful lot of new tunes. New performers. It's a totally submersive rock 'n roll prequel experience that is making the afternoon and morning commute something to look forward to.

I'd really love to get some track info for the collection if you have it please. And whatever back story you care to share about where or when this compilation came from. Was this something you owned at one time or something built from scratch? Either way, it's a delicious mix.

And yet equally frustrasting. It seems that for every song I recognize and can name, there's another song that I recognize and can't quite put my finger on. Track 4 was agonizing because I'm certain I have a German cover version of it, love it, but can't nail down the name of the song. It's gonna be one of those forehead slappers.

Sweet Baby Jesus, there's nothing better than going to bed, and looking forward to the CDs waiting in the morning. This is why we blitz!

Sandra Bullock. Just Driving Straight and Fast.

A new wrinkle. In the deep, deep cold of February it turns out that signalling to turn now causes my CD changer to go on short and temporary pause. Just for the first 10-15 minutes of the drive and just in extreme winter cold, but there you have it. Add that to the weird brake-light issue.

Annoying, but not as annoying as the early morning driver who doesn't signal his lane changes.

And also.

I had no idea that John Williams and Beethoven were friends. Where did they meet?

Ah, the CD Changer wasn't broken after all.

Another 16-17 minutes of that loop waiting for the ride home. And maybe, just maybe, the longest, slowest fade out I've ever heard. So long and slow in fact, that I had to be sure I wasn't going deaf.

This is me applauding you for making my commute pure misery.

Longer Than the Top of Toronto (at least)

Of course you must have known it was coming up and laughed to yourself. Your little secret. Your little knife in my back.

I'm talking about the final track of Sgt. Abbey and that infernal, delightful, revelatory, ludicrious repeating loop that (to-date) has already passed 35-minutes in length. To be precise, A Day In the Life (proper) ended as I was passing Sherway Gardens. In the time that it took me to run north on the 427, east on the 401 and pull into the Universal parking lot, I listened to nothing but that hidden track. Nothing but. Through rush hour traffic. Through terrible snow conditions on the highways. Everything.

A curious thing. I can't even begin to remember or piece together the last 45-minutes of my life in any chronological sense. That loop-de-loop has completely broken the primary processing centre of my brain. But here's some of what happened and at least a portion of what went through my mind as I listened to it turn over and over and over and over. In no particular order.

- somewhere around the 2-3 minute mark, I think I started to get really into it.

- I flipped and flopped between excitement and genuine dread throughout the track. The loop was so hypnotic and intoxicating that I wasn't sure how I'd feel when it actually and finally stopped. I was a little worried about that. No, I was more than a little worried. I absolutely wasn't ready for it to stop. And then, of course I just couldn't wait for it to stop. These feelings fought it out for most of the drive. I also had real anxiety over how the track would end; Would it be abrupt? Would it fade out? Or would it sooner or later just stop looping and follow through to its conclusion like a bird that broke out of a cage. (This last option probably would've been too much to bear and I would have driven off the road like a crazy person.)

- I know for certain, and it was pretty early on, that I lost track of when the loop started, how it started, how it might end and whether it ever would. Without any melodrama whatsoever, I actually began to have that disorienting sensation of remembering nothing before the loop. The loop was everything. The loop was the only thing in the world and it was the only thing that ever had been. It was the only thing there would ever be. You could see how a person might go insane.

- Doubt, real honest doubt, hit me that this loop was your doing after all. It occurred to me how funny (in a not ha-ha way) it would be if the loop was entirely the fault of my CD player. It is 6-years old after all, and has seen more than 210K of road. It would be a perfect skip, but not impossible. And after the track passed the 30-minute mark, I felt real skepticism that you would have spent this much time looping the track. After all, this is your CD, not mine. And why you'd want to inflict this kind of mental chicken-wing on yourself with every blitz - well, that just seemed like real self-loathing. Why? Why?

- This is the truth, no exaggeration. I actually began to worry about my life and my health. The track never totally turned into white noise and it began to drastically change my breathing. I felt frantic and out of control for large chunks of the drive. All of this, amid rush hour traffic. I began to wonder if this was the thing that would actually precipitate a dreadful accident on the highway (and I had at least one close call.) My brain was entirely co-opted by the loop and I needed at least some small part to maintain the direction of the car.

- As is the manner of these kinds of loops, the sound byte itself turned and twisted and changed so many times in the half hour that I honestly don't know what I was listening to. It started as a song bit, I think, and maybe the singer was singing/speaking something semi-coherent at one point. But then it turned over and over, and I couldn't remember where the phrase started. And then it wasn't words at all, but gibberish. Consonant sounds actually popped out of the sequence, maintained dominance for a while, and then disappeared entirely. I had a clear idea of what was being said for a period, and then suddenly couldn't hear it again no matter how hard I concentrated. There was a spell there where it turned into something really dirty.

So here's the kicker. Sgt. Abbey is the last CD in the changer. And the track hasn't even ended yet. There might be 2-minutes left. There might be 15-minutes left. I'm inclined to circle the block at Victoria Park until it ends just so I can drop the new CDs into the trunk. (In any other situation, I'd just change them now and re-listen to the song I hadn't quite finished. Not this time, boyo.)

Thanks for making Monday morning interesting.

number9number9number9number9number9...

I don't know what it says about the day to come when you spend the drive in to work listening to Revolution #9. I don't know what damage it might have done. I don't know what time bombs have now been laid.

The worse thing about it is that I feel like I was completely assaulted by the song, especially having listened to it in that semi-conscious, barely-past-dreaming, morning-state that happens at 6 am. The doors were open and the filters were down. They were getting Jer without defenses.

So just what have those boys done to my hard-coded programming??

More on That There Do-Wop Band

I don't need Beatles covers.

Isn't it funny that some bands, certain artists just feel wrong singing someone else's material? I can appreciate the covers that show up on those early Beatles records - the raw rock spirit and the way the band sounds on its way to shaping its own voice. It's easy to see them ripping up a bar in Germany, shredding through the Chuck Berry tunes. I do appreciate those songs. However I don't really need them on the records.

On the flip side, I can appreciate Elvis singing anything by anyone. And since he wasn't a songwriter, that's all he really did, right? Sing other people's songs? I would love to have a copy of Elvis singing just about every song in the world.

So why the distinction do you think? And where's the line?

I read an on-line review of that new (well, new-ish) Sinead records (She Who Dwells, etc etc.) where the reviewer basically crapped on the whole CD because it was nothing but Sinead doing covers. This writer wanted original Sinead material and wasn't interested in hearing her tackle folk tunes or pop tunes by other artists. Yet it doesn't bother me at all - she's got a unique voice and I like to hear it applied to unusual material.

Then there's Prince m'boy, another artist who frankly never never ever needs to perform other people's tunes. I'm simply not interested. Everything he's ever done (written by someone else) is just boring and pedestrian to me. I can appreciate that he loves 70's soul and 90's Joan Osbourne tunes, but I don't need to hear him prove it. It takes the shine of Emancipation for me that there's so much covered material. Even A Case of You, possibly his best cover, is wasted on me. Wasted.

What'chyoo think about that?

You Have to Admit It's Getting Better, Better All the Time.

These are the runs you wait for in a blitz of any kind. CDs in the changer today:

Rubber Soul
Revolver
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Magical Mystery Tour
White Album (Discs I & II)

How does it get better than that?

The thing that sticks out the most for me now (as it does everytime I hit the early-B's in these blitzs) is that the Beatles must benefit from the blitz as much (if not more) than anyone else. There is no better band to demonstrate the great power of a concentrated blitz, starting with the I Saw Her Standing There and riding it out to Get Back. The Pastmasters CDs are always a nice footnote, but by the time you get to those, the story is over. Beginning to end: there's such a great plot that unfolds.

Couple of things to add.

First, perhaps the best timed song of the blitz so far was She's Leaving Home which was waiting for me in the car on last night's drive home. I don't know why. Nothing thematic there, just a really beautiful, prozaic, transcendent song waiting at the end of a long, ragged, exhausting and draining work day. One of those fateful gifts from the Music Gods. When it started, I actually felt a chill run down my back as the weight of work melted away. Wonderful, wonderful sensation. I wish everyone could know what it felt like.

Second, I think that Fool On the Hill must be one of, if not my favourite Beatles tune. Is that a weird choice? Obviously, the most played and most universally-revered tunes are sensational, but I have a special spot for Fool On the Hill. No baggage there. I just love the simple melody and the unforgettable lyrics. Those whoa-whoa-whoa's get me there every time..

I woke up hearing Blue Jay Way in my mind this morning.

Barenaked in the Morning.

I dunno. The Barenaked Ladies experience was a little more cynical and moody than I was expecting. Between songs like Hello City and Never Is Enough, the band actually seemed kind of snarky and snooty at points. It kind of put me in a funk. Not that I'm mistaking BNL with NIN, of course.

So here's the question. Ed Robertson or Steven Page?

I have to confess that if the band was led solely by Ed at this point I would probably be a fan. It's the Steven Page songs that still and will forever remind me of Scott Dempster.

But there you have it.

Rage Against the Soundgarden

You were right. Audioslave was far more Soundgarden than Rage Against the Machine. Which is a pity, because I was really in the mood for a little RATM during the morning drive. And I've never really had much love for Soundgarden.

Oh well.

Hm, oh crap.

I knew I was relying on your Word document too much.

Amid the ballyhoo of trying to figure out whether to blitz the Barenaked Ladies or the Bachelors first, I completely skipped over Audioslave. Oh, I'm catching up now - following the Retards that fall between A and B. But my point is that the actual order is now shot to hell.

Lesson learned? Spine and alphebetize the CDs when you get them. This will serve me all the better when your tally falls apart after Goo Goo Dolls...

Tangled Up in the Retards.

I'm afraid it's true. For every up, there's a down, and for every Alice In Chains, there's a Fiona Apple.

Tonight (and much of Friday) it was about slogging through the Retards. I'm sorry to report that it was not always super-fun. Maybe it was that awkward break that comes from Friday night to Monday morning which always disrupts the flow of the blitz (I do most of my blitzing during the week, when I do the bulk of my driving. On the weekend, it's all about the White Saturn and the Teddy Bear Picnic.) Or maybe it was the schitzo alphabetical nature of the Retards themselves.

At any rate, it wasn't until the Funky Retards (and you must copyright that title, by the way) that I actually become...Christ, can I use the word...bored? And in a CD that grabs the word funky to describe itself? Specifically, it was somewhere between Cypress Hill and en Vogue when I realized (or worse, felt) that the music was tiring me out. It was something I'd heard a million times. It was played out. I was over-saturated. I considered flipping on the talk radio.

[Tangent. By the way, this is the very reason that I've proposed the radical 10-15 year time capsule on 90% of my music collection. Like batteries, these tunes are in bad need of a recharge and I'm concerned that my playing and playing and overplaying them in the last 10-20 years has burned them out entirely for me. Boredom is not a word I want to bring into my music collection, but there you have it. It's already there. It's my hope that by burying and re-discovering most of my favourite music in a decade's spell will come with old memories and new flavours that I missed or can't enjoy this time around. The Retard CDs summed the importance of that experience for me, but damn quick, Skippy!]

Now, before I get to the saving grace - and the good news is that there was one - I want to take a minute to kick MC Hammer hard in the balls. I have to confess that the MC Hammer triple play of 2 Legit 2 Quit, Can't Touch This and Pray might be the lowest point that a blitz can reach for me. I'm all about the guilty pleasures. Let me re-iterate: I'm aaaaaaaallllll about the guilty pleasures. But I've never tagged those three songs back-to-back before and the cumulative power of their drone was enough to make me consider my options: finish the CD or turn the car into the guard rail. Seriously, I was dying. In the meantime, I had a bit of time to tug at the formulas. Here's what I found:

2 Legit 2 Quit - This song, for me, might be the single, best, most important and most improbable example of why the early-90's are the worst years in pop music. The song has everything bad about 90's pop music. Everything in one single radio-friendly song! It's as though Hammer was scrolling through his catalogue of bad-pop/rap devices and checked the box next to order all. You've got the Rosie-Gaines-ish back up singer howling away a-la C+C Music Factory throughout the song, hollering nothing clear at all. You've got the tough guys (who I imagine are in the tight C+C tank tops also) chanting out the chorus like it's a battle cry before a football game. You've got the orchestral smacks, overused to the point that they become like musical bitch slaps. And you've got repetition. You've got repetition. You've got repetition. Have you ever paid attention to how long this songs goes and goes and goes? (In the spirit of total and 100% disclosure, I do want to let you know that I practiced and perfected my 2 Legit hand signs in the time it took to listen.)

Can't Touch This - The perfect cheese-is-good song in any other context, but sandwiched between these two winners, it's just another jab in the thigh when you've already got a charlie-horse. Here's what made me laugh this time around. When MC Hammer gets to the break-down ("break it down!") the song doesn't, and please correct me if I'm wrong, break it down at all. In fact, I believe this is called a bridge. And to make the experience even more meaningless, Hammer goes back to this device FOUR times before the end of the song. I never realized it happened that many times but you count it out - four (4X) times - break-it-down (aka bridge), return to chorus, break-it-down (aka bridge), return to chorus, break-it-down (aka bridge - this time too lazy to shout out the "break it down!"), return to chorus, break-it-down (aka bridge), fade out. Really. The structure on this bad boy is a marvel of modern music.

Pray - Now here's a song I didn't even bother to include in my 90's collection because I didn't like it, I didn't want it and it never even appealed to me in a funny way. I didn't even know that it sampled When Doves Cry until tonight, and I think Prince should sue. Because by adding the bass line back to When Doves Cry, Hammer has dumbly demonstrated exactly why Prince stripped it out to begin with: it makes the song average (well, maybe that's overstating the case a bit - it's not quite average, but certainly not one of the best songs of all-time!)

So here's the good part. It was Shaq who got me home. Shaq!?! Of all 90's basketball-acting-rapping triple-threats, it was the Shaq-Attack who brought me out of the dumps! It's been a long time since I played call-and-answer with the whole "do you want me to shoot it?" number? And I don't think I've heard him trying to connect with Def Jeff since you owned this CD. It was a great throw-back and a totally great reason why these CDs work after you let them get dusty. I don't know where I was in nineteen-ninety-Shaq, but I went back there tonight.

Hm, by the way.

Quick question about the playing order of your CDs.

I'm working from the Word doc you sent, but just noticed that you've alphabetized the Bachelors CD (Cocktail Music) after Beethoven. Barenaked Ladies is, according to the Word list, your first B. Is this correct? I'm not worried about keeping things completely alphabetical (I'll obsess about that in my own blitz, thanks,) but I am concerned about following your blitz as closely as possible.

Can you recall which CD you spun first? Clearly time is of the essence in your response as I'll be your Yoko Ono by Friday.

Maybe she's so angry because she's so boring?

I would much rather have listened to Tidal No-Frills tonight. As much as revisiting Anthrax's Attack of the Killer B's was a fun throwback to a CD I long since left behind (and missed), Fiona Apple's Tidal Deluxe was one that I didn't need to visit again. Christ, I forgot what a deadening experience this CD was.when I owned it. Time hasn't been kind.

Fiona Apple is part of that small group of over-hyped, over-awarded, critical darlings that I can live without. Y'know the kind? The Grammy all-stars. Talented? Hm, maybe. But dead-dog boring. Uninspired. Passionless. The musical equivalent of a cold fish wrapped in newspaper. I'd put Alicia Keys and Norah Jones in the same rocket ship and blast them all straight into space. Where perhaps they could land on the planet of bland A/C garbage?

Alicia Keys? On behalf of Prince, I've tried. I've really really tried. There's no question that she's a talented girl, but her music is just sort of hollow and (ironically) soul-less. Have fun listening to that CD when it turns up in the Blitzeroo. I'm keeping it on the basis of How Come U Don't Call Me Anymore? The rest of it puts me to sleep.

Norah Jones? I don't even need to hear the whole CD. I know what the package is. I like and still listen to Holly Cole. That's my one-stop for top-40 jazz-pop and at least, Holly Cole throws some spice in the mix. Norah Jones is that white paint you see in government buildings. I read her described somewhere on-line as the ultimate Starbucks soundtrack, which sounds about right. [Crap - you don' have a Norah Jones CD, do you?]

Macy Gray? Yeah, OK. I liked Macy Gray. Overplayed and boring in retrospect, but she's still got some funky album tracks. (I'm thinking of Caligula, which you'll hear if you don't already have this CD.)

Alas, it saddens me that I couldn't get through Tidal Deluxe completely before I got home. That means there's still some tracks waiting for me in the morning. Wish me luck getting out bed...