This Is Me Catching Up

Let me put it right out there: I've been feeling quite guilty, remiss even, over the lack of blog entries I've been able to post. It's been a combination of unequal parts being busy at work and then being obsessed with acquiring new music, such that almost every free moment in front of a computer has been spend burning CDs or burning new music into my computer. I should point out that over this very weekend I got a new computer for my apartment. And as soon as I figure out which of the seemingly endless choices for an internet provider to go with, I will be up and running on the information superhighway.

The problem with missing so much time is that you literally can never catch up on world events or even personal business. For instance, you may be wondering how my birthday went last week, which places I went out to celebrate with friends and family, etc. Some of you may be curious as to how I felt about the horrible school shooting by that ugly dork of a loser who went ballistic on the Virginia Tech campus. For the record, I was adamantly against the whole sordid episode.

You also may be wondering how my freelancing career has been going. Let's just say it's been as busy as it's ever been. I think I only missed two days in the entire month of April, which is deceiving because there were days I worked two different places on the same day. So in addition to my regular shifts at LT, I've been working some one- or two-day projects elsewhere. In fact, I just got a call from the Agency informing me that CB needs me for two full days, tomorrow and Wednesday, so I have to check with LT that it's okay for me to miss those two days and come back Thursday. This could be a very lucrative week if it all works out. It's always a balancing act but it's good to be wanted by different places, good to be in demand.

Then there's also the recent NFL draft to discuss, but first I have to do some research on the picks the Cowboys made. I do know that in addition to getting a stud pass rusher in LB Anthony Spencer from Purdue, somehow we came out of the weekend with Cleveland's overall #1 pick for 2008, which of course could be a very, very high pick indeed.

So that's it for now. It's back to work so that I can live to write another day. Write to live and live to write.

Imus-Free Mornings

THIS MONDAY MORNING, for the first time in about 5,000 or 6,000 mornings, New Yorkers did not have the option of spending quality radio time with the Imus in the Morning Show on WFAN. Instead, the same 660 AM spectrum cruelly brought listeners a wholly unnecessary dose of Mike & the Mad Dog, the station’s usual afternoon drive sports talk show team that will be filling in until management decides how best to replace Don Imus.

By now even alien life forms are aware of the three infamous words that cost the broadcasting legend his morning radio program and possibly his career after more than 30 years in business. I used to be a huge fan going back more than a decade, when the show was still based more on scripted skits and celebrity imitations than on interviews with broadcasting bigwigs and politico blowhards. Way ahead of the curve as usual, last August I announced in these very pages that I was in fact personally boycotting the I-Man, not because of any problem I had with the racial tone of the show, but simply because Imus had effectively turned the program over to his producer, Bernard McGuirk, and a steady coterie of in-studio regulars like the sanity-challenged ex-NYC cop Bo Deitl and redneck jackasses like Larry the Cable Guy. Plus, I grew tired of his quest to be all things to all people, trying to appeal to the lowest common denominator in his listening audience while simultaneously trying to play the intellectual as he chatted with writers and pundits. Despite his eventual opposition to the Iraq war, in my opinion Imus far too often gave passes to right wing hacks, and that was why I wished him into the cornfield, but I never wanted the guy fired. It’s like when eventually you’ve had enough of your parents at a certain age, all their arbitrary rules and insanity, so you decide to run away from home. Well, you still don’t want anything bad to happen to your mom and dad; you just need a break. That’s the point I reached with Imus. I wasn’t gonna listen every day, but once in a while you tuned in to hear a few yucks, as Imus himself used to put it.

Ultimately, it was bad karma that did in the I-Man. Having banned Sid Rosenberg for his own more-than-just-tasteless comments about black athletes, loyal-to-a-fault Imus finally relented and let him call in to the show once in a while; it was Rosenberg who Imus was talking to when he made his fateful wisecrack about the Rutgers players. And it was his own producer Bernie who egged him on. The perfect storm of imbecility did in the I-Man, and it was his own fault. It was far from the first time that Imus had gone over the line, but this time there was Internet video to capture it and bloggers and commentators to hammer away at his latest transgression. And somehow, at least for me, it was much worse to actually see Imus saying those words than listening to it firsthand or hearing about it after the fact.

No matter how bad the fallout WFAN had to deal with, there is no reason to subject listeners to Mike Francesa and Chris Russo so early in the morning. The station plans to have the duo perform double duty, at least for a couple weeks – doing the morning show and then their own show afternoons at 2:00. That is a train wreck waiting to happen. If this morning is any indication, where the two know-it-alls were joined (for some unexplained reason) by longtime Imus sidekick Charles McCord, New Yorkers are in for insufferably bad radio, because the two sports hosts are singularly unsuited for a time slot that requires at least a small degree of irreverence and wit, such that I predict the two will become even bigger caricatures and parodies of themselves.

Late last week when news of the Imus firing came down, Mike and the Mad Dog predictably went into full-on outrage-slash-self-righteous mode, with both vociferously blasting station management for their disloyalty and cowardice toward their guy, who brought in more money for the station than anyone. So why do they bail out CBS management by agreeing to fill in as morning replacements? I gotta admit, I had already had it with those two, but just for that sleazy move alone, I will be rooting against these two loudmouths for a long, long time.
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With all the furor over Don’s and Ho’s in the news, I found it more than a little ironic that this very weekend fate saw fit to "announce" that one quite unnappily-headed Ho – smooth-voiced Hawaiian pop singer Don Ho – finally passed on to that great big luau in the sky. I doubt the classy crooner best known for rockin’ the Tiny Bubbles ever called women ho’s or bitches in his songs, but I could be wrong; maybe he planned to use his great god-given monicker (MC Ho, anyone?) to cut a few gangster rap albums to cash in on the hip-hop market. *****************************************************************
I have a system when it comes to the start of a new baseball season: I simply pay no attention until 10 games have been played. That means not watching or listening to games, not even looking at box scores in the paper. Sure, I know A-Rod’s off to a great start, and the Mets are in second place (sweet!), but who cares if someone is hitting .575 after four games. At least 10 games is a body of work, however small, that you can go on. My system worked out better than usual this year, what with the absolutely awful weather we’re getting on the East Coast and in the Midwest, with rain-outs, snow-outs, frigid temps, no sun whatsoever... And with the NBA and NHL playoffs starting, and the NFL draft less than two weeks away, there’s no great urgency to follow baseball closely for at least another 10 games or so. The Yanks are struggling along with a sub-.500 record, Mariano blew a save yesterday, and the injuries to their starting rotation continue to mount, but as long as the Mets or Red Sox don’t run away and hide, I’m OK for now.
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That wacky power pop festival I went to in Brooklyn a few weeks ago is still making news. As I mentioned, a great time was had by all, but I never knew that I was attending some historical event. Apparently it was the power pop version of Woodstock, at least according to this week’s Village Voice, which featured a gushing review of the event. No mention of $11 drinks and $6 beers at the bar, but hey, a small price to pay I guess to see six bands for $22!

New Wave Nostalgia

Last Friday a friend asked me what I was doing for the upcoming weekend, so I told her that I was going to a club in Brooklyn to see a bill that included the Speedies and the Neighborhoods, a few punk bands I had seen back in their/my heyday, and I jokingly called it an exercise in pure nostalgia. Little did I know how fitting that description was, because when we stepped into Southpaw, the small club in yuppified, hipsterized Park Slope, it was indeed a true time warp, with most of the patrons sporting spiky or shaggy haircuts and wearing skinny ties, buttons, badges and other authentic-looking accouterments from the new wave era. All I had was my leather jacket and the actual memories from that time period.

The concert featured six bands on the bill and was the second of four nights of what Southpaw was calling a Power Pop Festival. We were really there only to see the last two groups: the Neighborhoods, the legendary Boston trio who would be going on fifth, and then Brookyn's own Speedies, who would close things out. I had seen the Neighborhoods at Hurrah’s waaaa-aaaay back in March of ’79, my very first punk show...mind-blowing, life-altering...and judging by the youth of the crowd, it had to be a first for a lot of kids that night. The Speedies were best known for a handful of singles, including 1979’s terrific Lemme Take Your Foto b/w No Substitute. I don’t think they even had a whole album to their credit. The Neighborhoods also were best known for a single 45: the tremendous No Place Like Home b/w Prettiest Girl released in 1980, which features great lines like:

"Mom and Dad are so frightnin'
Every day's a crisis
Dad comes home and he's nervous
The air's so thick you can't breathe!"

&

"My best friend is my hi-fi
At Thirty-Three and Forty-Fi-Yi-Yive!"

The Neighborhoods did release a few albums, including 1987’s overlooked Reptile Men, but nothing that matched the blistering intensity of that initial single.

Johnny Star had done his research before the show, reading the group bio on the Speedies Website and discovering how the band members had gone on to have interesting careers after they dissolved around 1981. One guy made a lot of money working for Apple Computer, where he helped design the QuickTime video system; the drummer became a lawyer and then a judge; while another member became a photographer and a professor at Yale University. Also, Hewlett Packard bought the rights to Foto and plans to feature the song in an upcoming TV commercial campaign. Surely not your typical postpunk-breakup story! But then again, after playing in a few fledgling bands of my own, I grew up to become whatever it is I am, while Johnny Star became a NYC fireman, and various other friends from that scene went back to school or became chefs, limo drivers, carpenters' wives…

The first four bands were of varying quality, but one group, the Baby Shakes, did stand out: three young Asian girls in matching black&white outfits playing loud&fast/melodic Ramones-style songs and looking exceedingly cute in the process. I took some cell phone pics but alas they’re pretty blurry.

















Also ran into Lyn at the bar, who was part of the New York new wave band The Comateens back in the day along with Nik North (nee Nick Dembling), who I worked with later at the Wall Street Transcript. Just another of the night’s funny coincidences I guess but it seemed to all make sense.


It was just like old times as we took our place in the crowd near the stage, sweating and laughing and singing along with everyone else. There’s still nothing quite like the rush of good live music. Between sets I would get some air outside, grubbing smokes from the young hipsters, reminiscing with older former punks nearer my own demographic, and checking out the hot young punk chicks dressed in their carefully cultivated customes of spandex, leather, fishnet stockings and spike heels. Still works for me.

My one little nit to pick is that the Speedies managed to cram around 10 songs into their set, but somehow overlooked my favorite, No Substitute, with the catchy but cynical Buzzcocks-like chorus,

"Girls in love they don't exist!"

After their set we caught up with Allen, the Speedies drummer and now a Supreme Court judge, outside the club. We busted his balls about the band not playing No Substitute, but he said the band didn’t have time to "re-learn" all the old tunes in time for their first show in almost 30 years. True, the beginning of No Substitute does have an intricate drum intro, but still... It would be like seeing Grandmaster Flash live and they decided to play The Message but not White Lines! Unacceptable.

While the Speedies’ set was very sloppy but fun, the Neighborhoods, with all three original members alive and intact (no small feat given the passage of time), sounded almost as tight as they did nearly three decades earlier -- bouncing around the stage with the same manic energy that characterized their old sets. Unlike the Speedies, the 'Hoods rightly played both sides of their best-known single, as well as the best song (Pure & Easy) from Reptile Men. It was a night where everything seemed to come full circle.