John Cougar Melancholy

I was fortunate to catch an interview with John Mellencamp on NPR this morning. I'm still a fan of his, having begun listening to his music in the early 80's or so. I enjoyed his songs about loneliness and areas of society (both the corners and the wide-open spaces) brimming with inequity, as well as lighter, more hopeful fare.

I've heard him on the "Bob and Tom Show" syndicated radio program and found him to be surprisingly funny. The NPR interview and his writing on his website revealed him to be surprisingly articulate as well. With all this surprise, you'd think I expected him to be some dull, grunting moron; certainly not. His sense humor was just so well-developed, his written observations and concerns very deep and clearly-expressed. Maybe it's the format of his music that scrambled my expectations: a three-minute song is a very different from an hour-long interview.

Anyway... I digress, but then, that's what this damned blog is for, isn't it?

The point I'm trying to thrash towards is that I haven't bought a Mellencamp album in years, maybe decades. I want to, and it may be largely because of the history and nostalgia I share with an artist whose music I started enjoying during my adolescence. Maybe that's enough.

However, I stopped buying albums because they stopped being any fun for me. For several albums up to that point, the songs had become drearier and sadder, and fewer of them on each album even tried to have hope or humor. The number for the Suicide Hotline should have been printed on each album cover. Specifically, the last music of his that I bought was a CD single of "Key West Intermezzo/I Saw You First." It was a longing work about a girl he saw but didn't approach, or something - it's been years. So, for one thing, I don't know what the fuck an "intermezzo" is, and for me the song was another masochistic wallow in depression.

I also saw what I thought was a strange rise in a techno-pop beat which really threw me. It just wasn't what I thought of when I thought of John Mellencamp. On the other hand, he's always had a rebellious and independent streak, and so I figured: "If this is what he's putting out, it must be what he wants to do," as opposed to something a corporate goon had forced him to do. I figured the artist was moving and growing away from me as a fan, and so I let it go at that.

Has it gotten any different? Is he still banging out despondent tunes with synthesized percussion that alienates me as a listener? I don't know. Judging a book by its cover, I see that his discography since has been largely black-and-white works of a down-looking John M. The NPR interview proclaims: "...Mellencamp is in the midst of a folksy, pessimistic streak on his new album." It doesn't give me a lot of hope.

Has he forgotten the hopeful half of "It's A Lonely Ol' Night?" where a black hole of desperate loneliness is balanced with the prospect of sharing that lonely ol' night with another forlorn soul in the cold emptiness? What about the tragic pointlessness of "Rumble Seat," and how it turns around and declares:

"Tomorrow is a new day
Gonna make these dreams come true
I'm gonna believe in myself
I'll tell you what Im gonna do
I'm gonna stop puttin myself down
I'm gonna turn my life around"

I haven't heard the kind of gritty optimism and insouciant rebellion John had sung in a helluva long while. I miss it a lot. I'll check out some samples on his website, and see if our tastes have adopted closer parallels. I hope so.

"Black Ice" review: on the other hand

[This is a second part of a two-part review of AC/DC's "Black Ice" CD. Read the first, angry part.]

Ever since I hit "post" on my review, I immediately felt regret that it was so negative - embarrassment as if I had drunkenly slandered a family member. I'm just not comfortable shitting on AC/DC like that, after their years as icons of Rock, deserving of my admiration and a more circumspect review. Here is that second look.

For the past few album releases, it has often been the case that I was initially disappointed in the music, as it did not stack up to former glories. Later though, the music, although different, grew on me. For example: "Rock Your Heart Out" sounded fluffy, but over time I was able to appreciate it more on its own terms. "Boogey Man" sounded great on their "No Bull" concert DVD (thanks to Steve for the lend). There are plenty of other examples, and the new album is no different.

It's somewhat (not entirely) unfair to compare new music to past performances. A rigid attitude like the one I took leaves little room for growth. With that in mind, songs like "Stormy May Day" and "War Machine" are actually very worthwhile songs, expressive and effective. "Rock N Roll Dream" also has its own sound, slow and dreamy before stomping into a contrastingly forceful chorus.

I must admit, my initial review felt a lot more correct than the drivel I've read elsewhere, like "Black in Blacker!" Please, calm yourself, douchebag. I hope that balancing out it with this more considered reflection gives a more complete review to anyone considering buying the album.

I must say, I wasn't all wrong: "Money Made" still plods along like a Communist ballad or a slave's mantra, and "Rock N Roll Train" still sounds trite. I can almost hear the mechanical background sounds from Queen's "Back to Humans," a very good song in its own right. "She Likes Rock N Roll" hits me like a throwaway. I still wish the lyrics overall were more complex and specific, but that's me - I enjoy tight lyrics. Who knows what will grow on me in time?

I still rock this CD and I do recommend it.

AC/DC's "Black Ice" review: initial reaction

[This review is my initial, hotheaded reaction to AC/DC's "Black Ice" CD. Read the mellower, more reasoned second half of the review here.]

I got a hold of AC/DC's latest CD, "Black Ice," within days of its release. I've avoided reading reviews about it so that I could form my own opinions, independently of others'. Ever since its release date was announced, I've turned away from the nagging internal voice that worried whether AC/DC's music quality would continue the downward slide propagated by at least their last two albums. Unfortunately, it has done exactly that, taking the band's legacy deeper underwater.

For example: "Rock N Roll Train" starts out with a serviceable guitar riff and beat, but never gets out of first gear. Lyrics are unimaginative, including: "Give it all, give it, give it what you got; come on give it all a lot; pick it up and move it, give it to the spot." That's not sexy, dangerous or clever; it sounds like instructions for installing a washer/dryer. And later: "Runaway train, runnin' right off the traaack... Runaway train, runnin' right off the traaack..." I know it's just the chorus, but shit. Tedious, flat, dull. And what is this damned song about, anyway?!

"Skies on Fire" similarly begins with some foreboding lyrics, but never gets to the point, and the lyrics quickly become repetitive, uninteresting and banal. I'm left with the same confusion as to the point of this one.

The whole CD, nearly without exception, has the feel of a high school homework assignment that a student had eight years to complete, but still waited until the last minute to finish. Brian Johnson's vocals are sincere and energetic; I sadly have to lay the blame on the creative process that cranked out music like my ex-wife fucks: perfunctorily and without any real skill or enthusiasm. Lyrics are simplistic and even disjointed. The music (and this is the part that really hurts) is amateurish. It sounds like a (very good) garage band's demo, that of a group who will really be something, once they find their voice and hit a groove.

But this is AC-fucking-DC, true Gods of rock, we're talking about. These are "the lads" who for decades consistently churned out chords that infested the base of your spine like a sinister disease, giving you literally no choice but to tremble, bow your head and nearly uncontrollably make the word "rock" an active, spasmodic verb. The roiling chaos of "Bedlam in Belgium." The diabolic, baleful foreboding of "Hell's Bells." The cheeky, insouciant triumph of "Back in Black." These are the guys who wrote lyrics that were both clever and approachable, daring and unrepentant like those in "Dirty Deeds" and "'74 Jailbreak." "What's Next to the Moon," for crying out loud!

They know how to do it, and do it better than anyone else. Why, how, could they go to print with such a lackluster release? Is it that the idea mill finally ran out of grist? Is it just about the money now?

One relatively bright spot is "War Machine." This one starts out with the thumping of war drums, providing a slow grind and malevolently mellow framework for the guitar and lyrics to sit upon. The rhythm guitar kicks in carries us into the song. If I could understand the lyrics, I could pass better judgment. I'll have to look them up.

Most of the other songs have good points about them, but they are very much diamonds in the rough, and one has to listen carefully to catch hints of brilliance. "Rock N Roll Dream" has another deceptively calm backdrop which allows the rest of the song to "pop," to leap forth. Sadly, there's not a lot of leaping going on. In "Stormy May Day," I can truly hear the melancholy and angst that this song wanted to express, fighting and failing to come across in the meterological non-sequitirs: "The storm is ragin', The winds are howlin; The water's calling - Rescue You." The music is almost persuasive enough to take you somewhere, but the lyrics dash and drown these hopes like the current a storm-swollen river. Ironically, that's what I think this song wanted to be about.

After listening attentively to the CD several times, I queued up "Nick of Time" and "Bedlam in Belgium," just to refresh my memory of what the boys can (could) really do. I'm so disappointed. Ah well - we'll always have the seventies and eighties to look back on. Jesus, I could almost weep.

Ozzfest report - the People

Amy took my humble ass to Ozzfest, and we had a great time at what was largely a Speed Metal Carnival. So many strange things...

Amy made fast friends with Daniel and his brother Tim. We were lucky to meet Daniel and Tim, as they were clearly on loan from an opium den in Sacramento. Daniel was an outgoing, thin fellow who had his hair moussed into stumpy horns and he had a wary look about him, as if the guys with white coats would catch up to them any minute and return them to the Psych Ward. Tim (whom I have renamed "Mungo" due to his gargantuan size and past-head-trauma demeanor) was much more Zen about it, as if the white lab coat guys were an eventual certainty and there was no point in troubling his mind over it.

We briefly met a former Marine who early in the day had already drunk enough to put him in the condition (familiar to me) where the mind still operates, but only on about half of the available cylinders fire. Five seconds of observation confirmed that the speech and major motor functions were online, but memory and higher reasoning had cardboard signs hung upon them indicating "Closed for repairs."

This meeting wasn't significant in itself, but there'll more about Full Metal Basket Case in a bit...

We made our way to the lawn seating, and about halfway into the show, three Pakistani-looking folks showed up, doing the same shifting and grooving as everybody else. Before long though, they stood out. Two of the three were a couple, a young man and woman. The first thing they did to set themselves apart was that the woman mischievously poured an ounce of beer into her date's butt-crack. Cute, and naughty, we all observed. He jumped and wriggled and boogied away from the frigid, wet wedgy just like you'd expect, and I thought he was mature enough to have taken this good-natured prank in stride. I was mistaken.

Minutes later, I see him grab not one but two beers (I'm told one of them wasn't even his), and dump them over his girl's head, in a very third-grade, overkill effort to get his girl back. Apparently, the chill beer on his vertical smile had taken its toll on his ego, and he branded himself a small-minded child in an attempt to salvage it. The excess beer (do you know how much those things cost?!) ran off onto the prone tweeker in front of us, soaking into the guy's shirt, hat and blanket. Fudge-Paki apologized to Tweekie, but not to his own girlfriend... He then spent the next hour dancing and thrashing and budging closer and closer to us, until Amy was grudgingly forced to put a foot into each of my jeans pockets and watch the concert from full-mount. We eventually moved. What a douchebag!

On the way back from the bathroom, I passed by Full Metal Basket Case, embroiled in a very intense, accusatory conversation with an angry little Metal Minx. I'm not sure what she was pissed about, and I don't think he had a clue either, but the snippet of conversation I heard was thus: "You know when you were talking to my boyfriend?! Well, that wasn't my boyfriend!!" And then she grabbed him, palm-up, by the lower jaw, and shoved his face back as hard as her poor impulse-control would allow. FMBC reset his cranium, and as soon as his glassy eyes reset upon the vengeful vixen, his right hand shot out in a looping-but-terse trajectory and clapped that bitch square on the jaw with the sound of a fastball hitting a catcher's mitt. Security and some do-gooders closed in to cool things out, and I continued on to my lawn seat, reminding myself that you don't go around assaulting a half-in-the-bag Marine and expect some twisted form of chivalry to save you from getting your eyes crossed.

Not that I needed reminding, but hey, we all can use a refresher now and then.

That's it for most of the people-watching. Oh, did I mention some strange boobs were bared in the name of Girls-Gone-Wild-type sisterhood (the best kind of sisterhood)? That 12 hours after the show, I could still taste the cigarettes and pot? That Amy is a fucking trooper for getting me home to watch my kid, even though she was near death at 2am? No? Well, they were, I could, and she is.

Ozzfest '07. What a show.