Rock 'n Roll 'n Lipstick??

Please share with me the source for your Cure collection title. I'm a Cure fan and am at a loss to decifer GNATTEE.

The Cure couldn't have come at a better time. You know how sometimes there are artists who you just crave in the midst of a Blitz - artists who could almost (but not quite) break a Blitz for you? That's what The Cure has been for me in the last few weeks. I've been passing through a very retro-Jer phase lately where I've been hankering huge for a lot of old high-school CDs. The Cure's been at the top of the list. See also: The Smiths and/or Morrissey. I don't know why. I'm just coming into that cycle right now. Maybe I'll grow my hair.

At any rate, hitting The Cure, even only one CD, was timed perfectly. With the sun coming down and some classic Cure tunes coming on, I was really feeling this Blitz tonight.

An observation: it was just now, for the first time, that I realized that Close To Me is, in a lot of ways that I don't care to try and articulate, the sister song to Prince's Kiss. Listen to them together some day (when you finish the Blitzeroo in 2010) and tell me if you don't agree. They don't share the falsetto. Close To Me has that very prominent bass and the handclaps that are missing from Kiss. But still, I was struck listening to Close To Me tonight that they must've been teleported from the same dimension...

Neil Reflects...

I was thrilled by the audio commentary for Crowded House's Afterglow. Because clearly that's what it was. To have the writer/musician drop in at the end of the album and give 10-15 minutes explanation for the record along with a play-by-play on each song was a rare treat. I wish more artists would do it. Jesus, can you imagine Prince or Tom Jones or some other such artist sitting down to nibble on the album in detail. Even if we couldn't take them at their word? The mind boggles.

The only thing I might have enjoyed more would be if the "interview" had preceded the record itself, as a sort of introduction. As it was I had to go back to disc one and replay a couple of the tracks with Neil's added insight. Most particularly Lester, which is a sweet little song after you know the back story (I'm embarrassed to admit that I didn't listen closely enough to the lyrics the first time through to know that he was singing about his dog.)

Crowded Ringo v.2

OK, never mind.

I still don't hear a resounding Beatles influence in Crowded House, but I have rolled across a couple of obvious Beatles-redux tunes.

Not The Girl You Think You
I Love You Dawn

Very John. Very Paul. Very George. Just a little Ringo.

Crowded Ringo.

Here's a topic I'd like to open to the floor.

You've mentioned a couple of times (and most recently in a Crapberries comment below) that Crowded House has always been a Beatles imposter band for you, and that you don't mind that at all. Problem is I've tried, and I simply can't hear it.

Help a brother out. What songs are you thinking about? What sounds/instruments/harmonies are making that connection for you? There's no question that the singing style is sometimes reminiscent of some McCartney songs, but aside from that (and I had to really concentrate to make that association), I hear nothing.

[By the way, I should add that Crowded House's eponymous album came and went splendidly. I really enjoyed digging into some of the album tracks that I'm not familiar with. Was it Hole In The River with that delightful "circus" like riff - 'd make a fine Cherry Blossom sample, I tell you.]

Sheryl Crow, Into The Box You Go...

A quick bit on Sheryl Crow, because you asked.

There are some artists that simply help drive home the cause to time-capsule my CD collection. Sheryl Crow, it would seem, is in the camp. Solidly. For a couple of albums that I used to enjoy, if not quite love (and I'm talking about Tuesday Night and Sheryl Crow here; never much cared for Globe Sessions,) revisiting them today was neither fresh nor nostalgic. Instead, the experience fell somewhere between. And between fresh and nostalgic, there is only flat. Bland. Dull. Predictable. Overplayed. Vanilla. Meh.

I'm not sure what Sheryl Crow will sound like 10 years from now. Listening to her today was like keeping the radio on a Top-40 station that was running commercial free. My mind drifted about until each CD was over and I realized that I was onto a new disc. Sadly, I have my suspicions that listening to her years from now won't be much different. In the meantime, I'm anxious to put her in a drawer. I'm certain that I won't miss the CDs.

One last piece of business: it might amuse you to know that Sheryl Crow (the record, not the artist) reminds me an awful lot of the backseat of the white Cavalier. I must have picked up this CD a few weeks before we made the first voyage to LA, because I clearly remember listening to it in your car, and using it to bait Raph. He either hated or loved the first single (If It Makes You Happy) and we played it for him more than a few times. But to amuse or torment him, I can't remember...

Have You Ever Seen The Rain?

Timing is everything. The music gods see to that.

Gruelling traffic on the 401 tonight. But with the windows down, a warm spring/summer breeze and your CCR CD, I didn't mind so much. In fact, I just about enjoyed it.

Few bands have a sound as confidant and precise as CCR. Those stripped down guitar lines are immediately recognizable and always great fun.

If I can offer a single suggestion, because your CCR collection is almost-perfect, it would be in respect to a missing track. Long As I Can See the Light is a wonderful, wonderful song and sadly missing from the compilation. It's a great closer, and I was sort of hoping that it would pop up. I was a little disappointed that it didn't.

Just something to consider.

Oh, just to be a clear…

The last three posts seem so disappointed, angry and cynical that I felt like I should step up and explain: I am still loving this Ol’ Blitzeroo tremendously. And I find the C’s to be a hard go in my own collection also. I don’t know why.

I really am still having a blast…

Revenge of the Crap-berries?

Is there a wrestling term for a face who turns heel and then turns face again? I’m talking about a 360 degree character turn? It happens all the time; there must be an expression for it.

If so, that describes me and the Cranberries. As you may or may not remember, I used to have a couple of Cranberries CDs in University. I enjoyed them for a short time and then suddenly and without any warning couldn’t stand them at all. And it’s not like I simply lost interest. I actually abhorred them. I could not sell those CDs fast enough, and I doubt that I held onto any of the songs on tape (apart from those that show up in the 90’s Collection.)

So it is that I started the run of three Cranberries CD (that’s 140 minutes, fool!) with more than a little bit of anxiety. No, anxiety is the wrong word. Reluctance is better. Apart from a casual interest in seeing if I still hated them as much as I remembered, I didn’t want to drop them in the changer at all. But this is the way of the Ol’ Blitzeroo…and of course, I did.

The first two CDs went as expected. I was literally using the track details on the back cover of the CD case as a way to calculate the remaining playing time. I didn’t enjoy revisiting the albums in any way, though I want you to know that I tried very hard. By the way, while it hasn’t happened much in this Blitzeroo, my answer to this sort of problem is to play the music loud and try to let it absorb me. The first two Cranberries CDs were like trying to be absorbed by a brick wall. Mostly headaches ensued.

Which leads me to a hypothetical question. Again and again, it came to me as I was listening that the Cranberries sound an awful lot like early Sinead O’Connor, who I happen to love. In fact, The Lion and the Cobra is one of my favorite records of all time. Top five for sure. So why is it that I can love Sinead’s sound so much and be so annoyed by the Cranberries? Especially when the sound is sooo similar? Can you think of any other examples of this? Another one that comes to mind quickly is Lenny Kravitz – an artist that sounds an awful lot like Prince rocking out but to me, just isn’t. I just can’t get excited about Lenny Kravitz but give me Prince on a guitar any day.

Back to the point.

It was only a few tracks into To The Faithful Departed that I started to hit the bottom. In fact, it was Salvation that did it. I was almost – almost – ready to simply tune out the CD or worse, turn it down (something which I’m pleased to say that I’ve never done in this Blitzeroo.) But I didn’t and the music gods must’ve smiled on that. Because between the triple shot of War Child, Forever Yellow Skies and The Rebels, I suddenly and to the delight of the fans turned babyface. The crowd got behind me and I suddenly found the groove. In what must be the Blitzeroo equivalent of giving a kid in a wheelchair at ringside a high five, I actually backed up and listened to these three songs again. And at least War Child will show up on my Ol’ Blitzeroo compilation!

Worse, I can’t explain it. The songs aren’t that much better or different than anything on the rest of the album; I may even regret dropping a Cranberries song into the Blitzeroo collection. However suddenly in the minutes of listening to these songs I was aware of the brilliant summer weather. I was also coming home into a long weekend, and was on my way to see Episode III for the second time in two days. How could I not be open for anything?

I don’t think this marks a permanent change of view for the Crap-berries, but it was a stunning reversal that I wanted to share. And one of a million welcome surprises in the Ol’ Blitzeroo.

Document Indeed.

For a moment – just a moment there – I forgot what I was listening to, and Counting Crows began to sound very much like an REM CD.

Never much cared for REM either.

What Happened to Harry?

Harry Connick Jr. and I fell out after high school. I can’t say why. In the late days of high school (and early University), he was the cat’s pajamas, playing exactly to the kind of sound that I was looking for. These were the days that I was discovering and doing back-flips for anything that sounded remotely Sinatra. Swing was the thing, and Harry Connick Jr. was the only one trying to update the sound (note: in this example of updating, I really mean doing nothing new at all.) Sure, it was always clear that he wasn’t really in Sinatra’s league but he made a damn fine show of it all the same. And he was cranking out new music, which gave him a significant leg up. I pretty much wore out his early albums and was convinced that I was onto a sound that was reserved for me alone.

Then I went away to school and sorted of drifted off the path. I got really into funk and soul. And by no small irony, this seems to be the direction that Connick followed too.

[This is where the blog gets really bloody, so forgive me. And Patty, I know you have some affection for these CDs so please avert your eyes if you’re reading. Nothing good follows...]

Harry Connick Jr’s departure from swing might be the lowest point that I’ve reached in this or any other blitz. In fact, if I wasn’t certain that the horror would end, I might have had to pull the cord on the Ol’ Blitzeroo. She …was simply terrible. Beyond terrible. I’m going on a hunt for words now: Embarrassing. Ridiculous. Self-important. Ill-thought. Career-killing. Vomitous (In my excitement, I made that last one up.) I can’t even begin to list the things that bothered me about the record. But I will say that the Bob George poetry and funky 90’s instrumentals would be near the top of that list.

She was such a nightmare for me, that I was genuinely concerned about tainting my impression of the rest of Connick’s catalogue. In other words, now that I’d seen the dark side, I was no longer sure I could ever enjoy anything else – even the stuff that I loved in the past. The finger snapping was gone for me. Kind of like the way food poisoning will turn you off a food forever.

Mercifully She didn’t last long enough to kill me. And the record that followed (To See You) was fine, albeit filtered through some growing contempt for Harry Connick Jr. (if it wasn’t forced to follow She, I suspect I would’ve liked it.)

But there’s good news too. Before we count out Harry Connick Jr., I want you to know that I did get back into the swing through Come By Me. In fact, by the time I got to Charade (track 3, I believe – but I’m too lazy to check), I was almost ready to forgive him for She. And now that I’ve poured my pain into writing this post, I think I am ready to forgive him. Come By Me was just such a marvelous return to form. All sins were erased.

In the end, I think it must’ve been the music gods guiding me off the Harry Connick Jr path in the early 90’s, sparing me the grief of picking up She when it was current. [Funny, as I was listening to it, all I could imagine was a crew-cut and cocky Connick performing the songs alongside Michael Wolff on the Arsenio Hall show; and if that doesn’t explain the vibe and distaste I got from the record, nothing will.] But what struck me as most interesting listening to this run of (select) Connick CD’s was the meticulous symmetry of the experience. Let’s review because it's fun:

20
(Mostly) solo piano and low-key vocals; a little dull but nice background music

When Harry Met Sally
We Are In Love
Fun, big, brassy, toe-tapping swing; great standards and inspired interpretations

She
Purgatory; hell; broken bones; bloody noses

To See You
Low key trio music; nice but a little long

Come By Me
Songs I Heard
Fun, big, brassy, silly, toe-tapping swing; more standards and inspired interpretations

30
(Mostly) solo piano and low-key vocals; again, a little dull but nice background music nonetheless

For my money, I’ll stick to the fun, big, brassy, toe-tapping swing. Sorry Harry. I need you to wear this label and lie down in the box. I’m not interested in the experiments. I’m not interested in your growth as an artist. I’m not even that interested in your traditional jazz records even if they lend credibility to your position in the Jazz bunk at HMV.

I just want the horn blasts and the big beats. Please.

[By the way, on the subject of horn blasts and big beats, you might really enjoy Blue Light Red Light which is one of my favorite Harry Connick Jr records. It followed We Are In Love and was even more confident. And maybe more fun.]

When Harry's Evil Imposter Met Sally...

A quick note on Harry Connick Jr. I'll be delving a little deeper into his run of swing-funk-swing-swing in the next few days, but in the meantime I wanted to get something down before I lose it.
On the subject of Come By Me and Extras, can I assume that this was intended to be a wholly Harry experience? Because I wanted to give you a heads up that track 5 - the conspicuously titled The Way You Look Tonight - is perfomed by Harry's Evil Imposter aka Michael Bublé aka Sinatra: Generation 3.

Just so you're aware.

Also, while on the subject of the CD, it was by far the most pop and spark-riddled CD-R to appear in the Blitzeroo so far. All of this has the calming effect of seeming like an old long-play album, but there were a couple of abrupt track changes that kept me on my toes. Of course if you blitzed it first time around, you already know this.

Two Bits of Business on the Canadian Male Voice.

First.

Did you get this collection of Leonard Cohen tracks from me? I ask because I never knew and would probably not have guessed that you were a Leonard Cohen fan. No deep analysis there, I just didn't think you were a fan. And if this is in fact some cross-fertilization, then you'll have to agree that these touch points seem very funny - sort of like mini-cross overs in the Ol' Blitzeroo landscape. Lord knows you'll have a Crowded House collection to look forward to.

Second.

Sometimes the best part of blitzing is digging into a piece of a song that you've never heard or noticed before. For me, it was Famous Blue Raincoat, a track that I've heard zillions of times. It was on this pass-through, for the first time, that I really became aware of the breathing on the track. Starting the song as soon as I pulled out of the parking lot at work, I became aware of someone - a woman, actually - breathing behind me. For a good half second it really startled me, until I realized that it was simply the background singer (Jennifer Warnes?) on the song, taking air between the "do-dum dum's."

Amazing thing to discover.

Best Blitzeroo Fake-Out To Date?

That Cinema Classics CD that followed the church hymns.

When the funkified, 70's-filtered cover of Also Sprach Zarathustra started up, I actually believed I had put the wrong CD in the changer. I wracked my brain for at least the first 60 seconds of the track wondering just what I could've mis-filed. Surely this wasn't the opening track of the Tom Cochrane CD to follow, or the Leonard Cohen CD past that? I concluded that you probably left the wrong disc in the case and I was too clumsy to notice.

Then I recognized the tune for what it was.

How odd that the second track (and that's where I left it at this morning) seems to be a straight-up cover of Beethoven's 9th. And that the CD packaging itself doesn't indicate in any way that you'll be listening to crazy roller-boogie covers of the Classical works. I thought the ('68) in the title might've been the tip-off, but that date must refer the date of the movie - but this is clearly not the version used in the film.

Headline: Man Killed By Amazing Grace.

Here's something you didn't know about me. And how could you?

Church music - I mean honest-to-goodness religious hymns - put me to sleep like an infant on a washing machine. There's something about the pitch of the organ and the sound of the choir that make me drift off this plain and into another place. It was the bane of my Sunday mornings when my parents took me to church and at 10:31, as the choir filed in, I went into a thick meditative trance. My ears popped. Something rolled my eyes back and I was out of my body. It mucked up my Sundays. And it still happens at most weddings.

It goes without saying that this isn't the best experience on the highway. So when the 31 Classic Hymns turned out to be exactly that, I was a little concerned. Thankfully there was enough orchestra action that I could just about fool my brain into thinking that I was listening to a soundtrack. But that organ made me neeeervous.

The good news is that this CD was the dark horse - completely unexpected and really spectacular. I was expecting some dry Gregorian stuff (and was a little worried that the 31 tracks were the selling feature!) and instead, got some really involving and really amazing music. Great CD. Total surprise.

Christmas in May.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I was probably the only one on the 401 listening to Christmas carols in this morning's rush hour. And that's how the music gods must have wanted it.

Listening to Christmas music outside of December is wrong in more ways than I have time to list. But the best comparison that comes to mind is that it's like drinking a litre of Coke with breakfast. You can do it. There's no law against it. But you know it just doesn't and won't ever feel right.

Honer Boners and etc.

The sad thing? I think a few stray thoughts have probably fallen through the cracks during my accidental and spontaneous trip to blog silence. And no, I'm not about to back-track a month and try to piece together all the thoughts I might've had. That's just the sort of thing that's been delaying me getting back to this in the first place.

But it would be irresponsible not to touch on Cherry Blossom. And a little disappointing too, I'm sure. So randomly:

- What exactly is a "honer boner" then? Throughout the unplugged tracks, I could've sworn it was a harmonica, until the chords starting getting a little more sophisticated (I clearly tackled the theme to Gremlins at one point?) I can't - for the the life of me - imagine what this instrument looked like. Please help.

- High point of the Cherry Blossom sessions came in the most unexpected stretch (as high points usually do.) During the blue screen segment with Andy on guitar, I was assaulted with a sudden (and impossibly black) spring thunder-storm. It sprang from nowhere and smacked the car with hailstones, all while Andy's outrageous arpeggio's were starting to take me deep inside my skull. It was the sort of storm one imagines will precipitate the end of the world. Yet the whole time, Andy's guitar playing was divine. And transporting. I don't remember this session at all (though it sounds like I was there...)

- Surprised the piano didn't show up more. I didn't remember that we ever used it (I'm wrong) but sometime during the first CD, I was trying to remember if you'd had a piano in your basement or if it was my imagination. Then there it was. Sounded nice.

- I need the story here. The tracks with Raph's random sampling ("They're called fingers, but they don't fing.") really messed me up and were probably the least enjoyable part of the Cherry experience. Especially the backwards stuff (it's safe to say I never want to hear Raph putting on the Mexican accent in reverse again, until such time as I forget that it's there and stumble into it like a fool.) How did this all happen? And why, oh why, did it happen on at least 3 of the CDs?

- Speaking of repetition, for a Blitz that repeats almost never, listening to all 18-minutes of Drop the Ham three times in less than 48-hours is a tall order. I won't say I didn't enjoy it, because I did - but I didn't want to hear it that third time. No, sir.

- Raw Cherry. Explain please. I thought I had it figured out (ie. in the short bits that were clearly meant to capture the original drum samples, etc.) but then here comes another full-version of Drop the Ham. The whole damn thing. What's the general theme of this CD?

Crap.

Is it really closing in on a month since my last post??

Damn, chico - you really should've said something.