DALLAS

DALLAS by Poco.

Even though I hate the f*cking Eagles, man, they're permanently embedded in my DNA from years of exposure to classic rock radio, so I have to confess that one time I was stuck in an airport bar in Hawaii and played four of the songs from The Eagles Greatest Hits three times before my plane arrived. The only other album I knew in that jukebox was Was (Not Was) and that was not going to happen.

The Timothy B. Schmidt factor has pretty much scared me off of Poco, but when I heard that Steely Dan wrote a song for the group I had to check it out. You can totally hear the Dan's influence in Dallas melodically and structurally, but it's understandable why Becker and Fagen didn't keep it for themselves. Their poisonous relationships are strictly bi-coastal. I've been in Dallas and it ain't that nasty.

LISTEN.

Photo: Highway relic.

MATTIE'S RAG

MATTIE'S RAG by Gerry Rafferty.

Here's how this blogging lark goes: sometimes we look at the music and think we'll never pick anything worth posting, and sometimes there's a flipping embarrassment of riches. This week we're feeling blessed. I've got some amazing Peruvian pop music lined up; Amy is planning a J-pop week that will be awesome if we can secure the right mp3s; some killer Stones covers, some drinking songs, some Ottoman military marches, and on and on.

So we flipped a coin and decided to continue with the jukebox theme a little bit this week. As a man of many useless talents, I'm pretty good at picking radio hits from the 70s languishing on the jukeboxes of the dive bars of New York. Like Little River Band at the Village Idiot (RIP), .38 Special at Milady's, Jeannie C. Riley at Doc Holliday's, Cliff Richard at Muldoon's, and on and on. Oh, and Gerry Rafferty at Molly's.

Most people know a little Gerry Rafferty. Inevitably there's Stuck In The Middle With You, but also Baker Street, with the greatest sax in the universe. Most people don't know, though, that Baker Street is on a great, great album called "City To City." I spent about 4 years looking for it on somebody's recommendation, and finally found it in a dumpy CD reseller in Toronto.

This is all a long-winded way of saying that this song Mattie's Rag is on "City To City," and more people should here it, because it's catchy, Irishy, & worth a quarter in the bar if you ever find it.

LISTEN.

Photo: I love the classics.

We've started CMJ blogging

Our first post on the CMJ Festival for imeem is up at that group blog. Here it is. I'd say it's nothing to write home about, which is plainly contradicted by this very blog post. Anyway, it's not in our contract to gush about imeem, but embedding a playlist in one of our posts is, and I have to say, it's a pretty cool feature. Basically I just typed whatever band came to mind, and bam, it calls up any song previously uploaded by anyone else. Amy says all the kids use imeem, so there were a lot of songs to choose from.

The MS Society 75.5 Mile Bike and Hike Tour

I'm a little poorly right now because my body can't understand why I woke up at 6 A.M. to ride all the way around Manhattan and through the Lincoln Tunnel and up the Palisades and across the George Washington Bridge and back home again. I tried to tell it that it was for a good cause but that's small consolation when it comes right down to it. Many well deserved congratulations to Amy, John, and Ned who completed the "60 mile" (actually 75.5 mile) tour!

Paint the ceiling, part 2

Our first installment in this series left open the possibility that I would chicken out of the whole project. No longer. In metaphorical terms, I have crossed the Rubicon. In literal terms, I have destroyed our living room. That's a lot of paint chips!

IT NEVER ENTERED MY MIND

IT NEVER ENTERED MY MIND by The Miles Davis Quintet.

So I ended up alluding to the kitschmensch-ness of the Radiohead downloading experience, when that was really going to be the focus of today's song. No one can deny the amusement park quality of Corner Bistro, and I submit that it is a big draw of having a meal there.

This is where you go when you knock off work in the mid afternoon and talk about how good the burgers are and how cheap the beer is, but you bask in everyone's tacit agreement that yes, it is good to knock off work early, burgers are good, and beer is cheap.

It Never Entered My Mind by The Miles Davis Quintet has pride of place in the Corner Bistro jukebox (literally--it's "0001"), and for me it is the perfect song for the place. Lean and sentimental. Just like Corner Bistro, part of its appeal is that you can come across a million different versions, some better, some worse, and so it has a resonant quality. That appeal to nostalgia. And, of course, just like a bistro burger, it helps that it's really good on its own terms.

Have a good weekend, and we'll be back with a special CMJ schedule next week!

LISTEN.

Photo: Corner sign (3).

Here comes CMJ07

Every year CMJ takes over NYC for a week.

This year, it's taking the blog over too. Here's the deal: I've gotten a press badge to take in as many shows as I can over the five nights next week, and I'll be blogging it over at imeem's CMJ Music Marathon & Film Festival Group. I'll probably cross-post everything here too, so that will make up for my laziness in writing about concerts lately.

I just spent a few minutes unsuccessfully googling this, but I think my first CMJ experience was seeing Elliott Smith in 1998. This year I can see just about any band in the world (for real, the roster is pretty daunting), so I've been spending hours trying to narrow down the options. If you have any suggestions, don't hesitate to send them along.

I'd like to say thanks to imeem for hooking me up. I'm on there as the fairly ominous-sounding "H. L. I. T." It's pretty fun though. And, my very first friend is Justice! [their webmaster, says Amy the spoilsport.] Which gives me an excuse to post this great youtube of D.A.N.C.E. Check it out, and check back tomorrow for Friday's tune.

In Rainbows

I'm not going to do a review because a) I haven't finished listening to it, and b) I haven't yet read a decent one in about 18,000 blog posts etc., but I do have it...

I had already been planning to talk about kitsch on Friday, and I still will, but it strikes me as a very funny phenomenon that all of the Radiohead fans are all downloading this album at the same time and talking about how neat it is that they're all listening to it for the first time at the same time.

Update: Whoa, there's something in the air today, huh? I swear I hadn't seen this before I posted.

ROLLIN BACK

ROLLIN BACK by My Morning Jacket.

Going back to Monday's post, the Nick Drake record is displayed in the Corner Bistro jukebox as album "07." So every time I have a burger there I punch in "0709" to call up One Of These Things First.

The last couple of times, however, I haven't heard that song playing when I punch in 0709. Instead (and it's taken a bit of listening and guesswork to figure this out), it's been Rollin Back by My Morning Jacket. Somebody there has switched out albums without replacing the cover.

Previously I haven't been much of a fan of My Morning Jacket. Their reputation turned me off. As much as I love The Allman Brothers and the Southern Rock you hear on classic rock radio, I've always been wary of the progeny thereof. I've got an unshakeable conviction that it's all tuneless endless reactionary tedium. I'll not name names and trust you'll know who I'm talking about (or not know).

All the reviews I had read of My Morning Jacket had them pegged in that same group, so I ignored them for a long time. But a couple years ago I got a free copy of "Z." And I totally loved it. I was just blown away by how moving and listenable it was. And while I haven't become a fanboy yet, I'm really poised to go for that. Hearing Rollin Back (off MMJ's prior album, "It Still Moves") at Corner Bistro by accident a couple of times has me really excited for what comes next from them.

LISTEN.

Photo: Corner sign (2).

Ready to ride?

Many of you have donated to the MS Society in support of our MS Bike Ride that is scheduled to go off this Sunday. And for that we thank you! We've even convinced John and Ned to come along with us. (We're still trying to raise $75 for Ned so he can come along.)

In case you've been wondering why I haven't reported on our training regimen (we're thinking of doing the 60 mile ride, after all), well, here it is: we are going to the Olive Garden on Saturday to load up on carbs. Wish us luck!

ONE OF THESE THINGS FIRST

ONE OF THESE THINGS FIRST by Nick Drake.

Thanks to Volkswagen almost everyone has heard of Nick Drake, but it wasn't always this way. On balance that's a good thing but I'm not sure I ever got a bigger thrill of discovery from any single artist . That was thanks to Corbett. I remember I got my own copy of "Way To Blue" at a Blockbuster Music on 23rd Street while I was up visiting my Grandpa (the same one who built the Myriad) the fall of 1995. What is it with these songs? Are they placid? Unsettling? You can't get to the bottom of them.

Of the three albums, "Bryter Layter" always struck me as the weakest. That's the purist in me talking. Even so, Corner Bistro has long had a copy of "Way To Blue" in its jukebox, and over the years I've listened to every track there, and in my opinion one song sounds the very best there: One Of These Things First. Here it is for you.

***

While I have your attention: Congratulations to our two teams for their wins this weekend, congratulations to Paul and Medina for their new baby girl, Anessa, and safe travels to Amy and the girls!

LISTEN.

Photo: Corner sign (1).

TIME FADES AWAY

TIME FADES AWAY by Neil Young.

Today's song is from the legendary album "Time Fades Away." I picked up this bootleg at Rocks In Your Head, the now-closed record store on Prince that I've discussed before. "Time Fades Away" is a live album culled mainly from Young's 1973 tour that has never been released on CD.

The title track is probably not my favorite track on the album, but it's probably the best advertisement for it (which is why I've posted it!). Don't Be Denied stands up with Neil's best work. The Bridge sounds like (and I think is) an outtake from "Harvest." Yonder Stands The Sinner is kind of a throwaway, but I like it. Love In Mind and Journey Through The Past have markedly better sound quality because they were recorded on an earlier tour; the latter tour was recorded on an early digital recording system, "Quad-8 CompuMix," that muddied the sound; the relatively poor sound quality as much as anything may explain why the album remains unreleased. It's certainly not bleaker than "On The Beach," which finally got released a couple of years ago. Is it better? This is a discussion Corbett and I started (between the two of us--you haven't missed anything) last week. I find "Time Fades Away" to be the more listenable of the two, but that may be because the passion and intensity are a little dissipated relative to "On The Beach."

One more reason for posting the title track. Both Time Fades Away and L.A. were recorded at the Myriad in Oklahoma City. I can't put my finger on how Neil Young ended up there, but I think the tour came through (in 1973) pretty soon after the Myriad opened (in 1971 or 1972?). This is interesting to me because my great-grandfather was the construction superintendent on the Myriad project (it may be one of the main reasons he moved his family to Oklahoma City in the late 60s? I don't know). Anyway, the Myriad was a big, big job, of course, and just like Neil's recording system, the construction used some advanced techniques that caused some trouble. The arena was to be supported by these massive pre-stressed concrete trusses, but when they went to raise the first truss, it failed, disintegrated, fell apart. (I can only imagine the look on my grandpa's face at that moment.) Lengthy litigation later revealed a bad batch of concrete to be the culprit, and the Myriad got built without further hitches. Time Fades Away is a bit of evidence that everything worked out in the end.

LISTEN.

Photo: The Grove (November 2006).

You'll Never Walk Alone (But You'll Lose To Marseille)

YOU'LL NEVER WALK ALONE by Glen Campbell.

Today we're happy to introduce a new feature to the blog. It's called "You'll Never Walk Alone (But You'll Lose To __________)." The way it works is simple. Every time Liverpool lose a match, I will post one of my versions of You'll Never Walk Alone to try to cheer up all you Liverpool fans out there.

Today Liverpool lost to Marseille, so I'll start with just about my favorite version, Glen Campbell's. So don't feel too bad Scousers, but maybe you should think about saving Torres for the League Cup!

ON THE WAY HOME

ON THE WAY HOME (Live from London, 1971) by Neil Young.

Short write-up today because I'm blogging on location with a demented mouse. I found this concert bootleg a year or two ago on the internet. It's from the same period as the Massey Hall concert you can buy at Starbucks. On The Way Home has long been a favorite--I put the official Buffalo Springfield recording at the front of a mix CD I made for Amy's birthday a while back (I'd post the link to that CD at this point, but again, I'm blogging on location and don't have my full repertoire.)

LISTEN.

Photo: The Grove (April 2006).

Pop Lock and Drop It (Remix) (Bizarro Youtube)

From John, a peek into bizarro Chuck E. CheeseShowbiz Pizza world. Crazy.

--edited for correct happy fun place.