( 10:37 AM )
This is how a good lapsed Catholic celebrates Good Friday...I'm watching the Norman Jewison film version of "Jesus Christ Superstar." Sure, I know that some people find it sacrilegious and others just don't like the hippie production values and Ted Neely's portrayal of an always angry, always skreechy Jesus. Every year when I watch it I wonder how they managed to get away with doing all of the drugs on location in Israel. Me? I've got personal reasons for liking it, beyond even the fact that I have always really liked the Tim Rice-Andrew Lloyd Webber music, even if it is Tim Rice & Andrew Lloyd Webber.
Not long before he died -- when I was six -- my father took me to a stage production of "Jesus Christ Superstar" at the Playhouse Theater in the Hotel DuPont in Wilmington, Delaware. It was my first play and to this day I can still remember walking along the street in Wilmington with my dad -- all 6'6" of him -- and stepping into the high end hotel with all of the ornate fixtures. I've never gone into the Hotel DuPont since -- and I've been there quite a bit -- without thinking of that moment. I also remember being asked how the show was by the young nun that was my teacher in first grade (I'm pretty sure that she later left the sisters). It's one of my favorite memories of my time with my dad...and one of the only ones that doesn't involve a bar or racetrack.
When I was in my 20's, I went to see a road tour production of "Superstar" with both Neeley and Carl Anderson (as Judas) reprising their roles from the movie (which they also played on stage in London before the film). Probably wasn't the best staging ever, but it was still fun...and it did add in the song "Can We Start Again" which was written for the movie. Given the fact that I connect the show with my late father and that song is meant to reflect Mary Magdalene and the Apostles' fears once they realize what's about to happen to Jesus...well, let's just say that the song can get to me.
So that's what I'm doing. I may not be religious in the traditional sense, but I've got my own way of commemorating Easter.
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( 9:43 AM )
So, in compiling this 25 best albums of the past 25 years list (as mentioned in the previous post), I've had to think a lot about music that's been made since 1980. Man, has a lot of it been bad. And even when it wasn't that bad, how many albums in the '80's were horribly overproduced? Then, in the '90's, how many bland, mediocre bands were there? How many bland, mediocre bands are there now? How many faux-angst ridden singer/songwriters? How many screeching, I-can-hit-any-note songstresses are there? My idea to do the list spurred a flurry of e-mails between the 2Walls writers and one of them -- I'm no Elia Kazan or Jose Canseco, I won't name names...ok, it was Craig Curtice -- made a tongue in cheek reference to Hootie & the Blowfish...and was almost voted off the island just for mentioning that name.
The one thing that it has also caused me to reflect on, for whatever reason, is the early days of MTV. My sister (who's 16 years my senior) and her husband were the first people I knew who's cable added MTV, a month or so after its launch. Still remember the first time that I watched it one Saturday when I was left alone at their house. I meant to only watch for a few minutes to see what it was like...and then five hours later when they came home I still had it on. It makes me feel old to remember this, but it was just so different. There wasn't anything even remotely like that before.
I'm talking the really early days when all they could do was actually play music videos...which was a problem in and of itself, since a lot of acts didn't even make videos. And when I say that's all they could manage, I mean it. They weren't exactly technically proficient yet. Just following one of the early "VJ's" -- Martha Quinn, J.J. Jackson, Nina Blackwood, Mark Goodman and Alan Hunter -- on a tracking shot across the minimalist New York loft set was a challenge. The VJ's themselves -- with the possible exception of the always cute and perky Martha Quinn -- weren't the most dynamic bunch in the world. J.J. Jackson (God rest his soul) always seemed a bit too old, even though I always liked him. Blackwood seemed like an older groupie. Goodman looked like the guy from "Fame" and Hunter was just your average, run of the mill dweeb.
And yet for a long time there I was completely transfixed. At the beginning, MTV would tease what videos were on their way. "Coming up this hour, videos by Ultravox, Huey Lewis & the News, Pat Benetar and Adam & the Ants." The announcement would be read over still photos of the artists...which is always good on television. Many was the time that I would watch that tease hoping that "I Got You" by Split Enz was contained in the next hour. Even back then I thought that the video was lame, but just as now I thought the song was damn catchy.
That's part of the point though. When I hear "I Got You" now, I can't help but think of the video and Neil & Tim Finn's eyeliner. There wasn't even that much to the videos, but let me hear Squeeze's "Tempted" or Def Leppard's "Bringing On the Heartbreak" and I can see every frame. Mention Madness to me and my first thought isn't their big hit "Our House" but their goofy dance moves in the "One Step Beyond" video. Not that long ago, I heard a minor -- really minor -- hit by the band Nazareth called "Holiday." I hadn't heard the song in at least 20 years, probably more, but I'll be damned if the first thing that popped into my head wasn't the video.
Right then, at its outset, MTV had a goofy charm...before anyone really noticed that they never played any videos by black artists. At any given time they would show a block of videos that would include the Marshall Tucker Band, David Bowie, REO Speedwagon, Squeeze, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Adam & the Ants, Styxx, Bonnie Raitt, Huey Lewis & the News, Madness and Blue Oyster Cult. There wasn't always a lot of continuity. If you've noticed, I've mentioned certain artists more than once. There's a reason for that...because there were so few videos, they tended to show the same ones over and over. Besides the Squeeze, Def Leppard and Madness ones that previously mentioned, "Working For a Living" by Huey Lewis, "Vienna" by Ultravox, Billy Squire's "The Stroke," and "Ant Music" by Adam & the Ants had to have been shown at least once every other hour.
In a blink, of course, every artist imaginable was doing videos and MTV had plenty to show. Bands started showing up at the studio to be interviewed. "Billie Jean" by Michael Jackson broke the color barrier and soon they had dusted off Fab Five Freddie to bring rap to the channel (much as I love Freddie, his "Yo, MTV Raps!" paled in comparison to the later, greater Ed Lover & Dr. Dre version...come on, do the Lover with me). Headbangers got their own air time. There were awards and awards shows (complete with that wonderful early image of Rod Stewart and Ron Wood giggling incessantly, and fully in frame, behind a winner's back). There were game shows and news shows (not that I'm complaining...I loved "Remote Control" and I still have a crush on Tabitha Soren). By the ten year mark, MTV was already barely showing videos and headed down its "Real World/Road Rules" path.
However, I'll remember that initial jolt that MTV provided probably for the rest of my life. The infinite coolness if you were one of that first group that could discuss the videos in home room before a lot of people had seen the channel. Feeling like the mix of images and music was something fresh for your generation. Sitting on a couch with a girl, watching TV and listening to music at the same time (and ok, making out). The way that a cable television channel was able to so completely captivate the young teenaged mind.
I haven't been around for many instant cultural revolutions in my life, but I was witness to at least one.
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( 11:46 AM )
In his blog, 2Walls' fearless leader Mike Walls mentions a discussion we've been having about a list I'm compiling. (I would give you a link to his blog, but I work on a Mac and for some reason can't create links on the blog.) The idea for the list came from my realization last week that it's been 25 since I began subscribing to Rolling Stone magazine. In order to honor the occassion, and because I thought it would be fun to do, I started thinking about the best albums of the past 25 years. Then I figured that just like RS or Entertainment Weekly, I might just as well do a list of what I consider the best 25 albums of the last 25 years. As it happens, doing the last 25 years is much harder than if you were to do the 25 years before that where you'd have to choose from the Beatles, Stones, Who, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Doors, Beach Boys, Grateful Dead, Graham Parsons, Velvet Underground, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Clash, Eagles, etc., etc., etc. You could use just the 10 year period between 1964-74 and fairly easily trump the choices available for the last 25 years.
The first thing that I'm doing is coming up with ground rules. The first is that the album had to have been released after December 1980, since that's when I actually got my first RS subscription. Next is that it's my list so it's just my opinion. I have to be able to think of the album off the top of my head. If I think it's so great then I shouldn't have to go looking for it and it saves me from spending too much time thinking about it. The one exception is if someone mentions an album to me that I haven't thought of between now and when the list is done, since that also cuts down on my thinking. Next is that I'm going to limit it to one album by any particular artist, with the exception of (same wavelength alert, since these two were also mentioned by our Mr. Walls) U2 and Prince, who can each have 2 since they've each been at the very least interesting musically since their debuts, which, as it happens, were right around 1980. Then it's that if it's close in my opinion between two albums then the nod goes to the album that was more influential. Last is that I'm training myself not to downgrade something just because it was popular, like U2's "The Joshua Tree" or The Police's "Synchronicity." Sometimes an album was popular not because the artist sold out but because it's some of the artist's strongest work.
I was also outed in his blog as not being a fan of Radiohead and Wilco. It's true and I won't deny it. However, for the record I'm going to go back and relisten to "OK, Computer" and "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot," giving them extra consideration because so many people like them. They're only getting that treatment because I've heard them both through friends...as oppossed to say any particular Pixies album that I've never heard in it's entirety. And also because I've noticed that there hasn't been much that I've liked in the last five years so maybe I need to be more open minded.
I'm not going to post the initial list that I'm in the process of compiling -- which is pretty much just a list of any album that I can think of that I've liked since Jr. High -- but beyond the artists already mentioned it includes work by Nirvana, REM, Pearl Jam, Sonic Youth, Dr. Dre, Public Enemy, Don Henley, Lyle Lovett, The Mavericks, Tom Petty, Liz Phair, Depeche Mode, Beastie Boys and Beck.
So, that's what's buzzing around my head during slow moments these days. If there's something that you want to mention to me, or if you just want an early jump on complaining about my choices before I even decide on the list, feel free to send that along to BMccullin@2Walls.com.
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