Monthly Archives: June 2014

Scott Pilgrim: In Regard to a List of Things I’ve Liked for A Thousand years.

There are two important things to note about this blog. First, this is not the third post on Zeppelin I and second, this is a movie soundtrack. I wanted to take my time with the final Led Zeppelin blog and I was working with a lot of new material, this LP is one I know well from movie and music.

Scott Pilgrim Vs the World

I would generally avoid buying movie soundtracks on vinyl, but there is something different about this movie, this movie is about music. On the back of the record sleeve Edgar Write says that the music leaps off the pages of the original source material and also that these songs became the soundtrack for the lives of all the people involved with the movie. The movie sets itself in the middle of the Toronto indie rock scene therefore this soundtrack lives there. I know what you’re saying, “There were so many better option to start with, why didn’t you start with the Blues Brothers or Spinal Tap,” well there is a good answer to that, I don’t have a copy of the Blues Brothers and I didn’t really care for “This Is Spinal Tap.” And I probably wouldn’t have started there anyway, if you think they are so great write your own blog.

I should also say on the front end that I am not a movie critic, I base the goodness and badness of movies on whether I walked away saying, “That was fun I liked that.” Unless of course it was a sad movie then I base it off of the statement, “That movie explored deep issues and was important.” I make this clarification because for some reason critics didn’t like this movie and many thought Michael Cera gave a week performance, to those things I say very clearly, “Eh maybe but, the music was great and Michael Cera did what Michael Cera does.” But then I am not here to talk about some movie that came out forever ago, instead I am going to talk about the LP. I will probably mention the movie on more than one occasion but then this is a soundtrack.

I noticed something when I watched this movie, I liked the band Sex Bob-Omb. I don’t just mean the characters but also the music. The great thing is that was before I found out that the actors were playing and Beck wrote their songs. I have never been a big fan of indie-rock rock per-say but I would have loved seeing these shows, when I was younger and before I found my own Ramona Flowers. The music, as I move through the record, is so diverse and there is a tone that makes fun of itself. I walked away singing about going for a ride on a garbage truck… truck truck truck truck.

Spinning Pilgrim

These songs and the scenes being described remind me of the time from college to my late 20’s when I was catching live shows like they were going out of style, of course, I could list them off but you’ve probably never heard half of them. The difference between my scene and Toronto was the style of music, sure there was weird rock, but I was out mostly listening to blues, swing, and Rock-a-Billy. I spent a lot of time in Bars and Juke Joints, don’t get me wrong I would order a drink, but I was there for the live music and the dancing.

Of course not all the music is Indie and Beck, for instance “Under My Thumb” recorded by the Rolling Stones. The stones provide great anchor point, of course if you are looking for that sound throughout you may want to look into something else. The fact is, if you are an old feller who can’t open up to different styles you may want to just buy something else. This music was very different than my normal music that was why I loved the album.

One of the things I love about the physical construction of the album is the color, red. Or at least some weird variant thereof. The LP has a great look even though it was made with thin vinyl. That is normal with first issue releases. Most bands aren’t going to start with 180 gram vinyl until they have a big enough base to support them and with this record being a soundtrack it would have to garner major support. I do, however, believe that this record is important in any collection if you are a fan of the genres represented, if not however, don’t worry about it, you will only miss out on some great indie-rock and Beck, but if you are looking for a good music that will make you feel bad and think about stuff, you should check out this album.

In Search of Lead Balloons Part 2: Air Guitars Unleashed

Leave a reply

Led Zeppelin I Side One

I had planned on letting my new Zeppelin LP sit in its box for the weekend because I was going on a camping trip the next day, the kids were running around, and I had work to finish before I left. Then I told myself I would just open the box and look at the sleeve, admiring the work. Well, after opening the box I decided I would just hold the record and enjoy the touch, then somehow the record ended up on the record player. I figured by this time I would go ”all in” and pull out my old air guitar, moments later I was strutting through the music room playing and singing about the days of my youth when I was told what it means to be a man.

This band was not created but evolved out of the work of many musicians. We can’t actually talk about this evolution without mentioning “The Yardbirds” which involved not just Page but Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck, and somehow Keith moon got involved with John Entwistle. And when Page thought it would be great to form a band with these two but one of them said, “That would go over like a lead balloon.” They played a series of shows together and even recorded a song, but in the end this groups never solidified for one reason or another, the chemistry just wasn’t there but it is good to know the family history. It is good to know that all the good musicians played together but didn’t try to force something that wouldn’t work. Two years later when Page with Robert Plant, Jon Bonhom, and John Paul Jones decided to form a band Page remembered the old conversation about lead balloons.

Led Zeppelin I

As a teenager I didn’t know much about the history, I didn’t need to, I just knew how the music felt. The music filled me, when the song started I could see strobe lights and lava lamps, I could hear screaming fans, but more than that I could hear the moan. As a teenager I felt this feeling through all the girls that said no and the masses I was too afraid to ask. As a medical chaplain I heard it in the cries of those who were left behind when a loved one died, and as a Mississippian I heard in the crickets and juke joints. The moan was something more than just rock and roll. It is heartbreak, love, hate, joy and sadness, it’s blue.

This music became a major part of the soundtrack to my youth. It would be playing in the background when I was playing Nintendo, or writing in my journal. It played while my friends and I sat and did nothing on short summer days. And it mattered that it was old, it mattered that it was classic. I never really looked at the song breaks, the changes in the midst of the song would walk me down brand new path so often I thought the albums were made up of 30 different short songs. I appreciate that, during the middle of the song, the band seams to take a break just so they can take their guitars for a walk. There was something fearlessly heartbreaking in the music.

In an earlier post, I said this album was close to impossible to obtain before the reissue. I asked once if the record store clerk had Zeppelin 4 in stock, he laughed. In fact, he told me that when a copy would come in it didn’t last the day. I remember passing on a copy once in Memphis Tennessee 10 years ago I often think back to that day in sadness, and I have no clue what happened to my father’s copy. However, I had never seen any of their other albums. Sure I could get one of the compilations but that just wouldn’t be the same.

This set is the first reissue of the original source material since Atlantic stopped pressing the records. As a child I listened on cassette to Led Zeppelin I and II, but had my father’s copy of IV to listen to. I only know the rest through the compilation albums. I look forward to my new walk through of Led Zeppelin albums on LP. There is something special about holding this record in my hands… Strangely, when I feel the smoothness of the vinyl and the ridges of the grooves I can’t help but hear an echo saying, “They call me the hunter… that’s my name”

Don’t forget to check back for part 3 that will focus on the bonus material of the LP.

In Search of Lead Balloons Part 1: You’re Time is Gonna Come

Leave a reply

Friday Vinyl

I didn’t hear the knock at the door, I didn’t hear the door bell, and I didn’t hear the dog bark at the mail carrier. In fact I sat wondering why my record had not yet arrived, so I checked the tracking numbers. I noticed that that my package was reading delivered, so I opened my front door and saw sitting there, the square box containing Led Zeppelin I.

Since renewing my vinyl record hobby I had been trying to find used copies of Led Zeppelin albums to no avail. Used copies of Led Zeppelin records didn’t last long in used record stores. There is a good reason for this, Atlantic stopped producing vinyl because record players were on the way out and the mainstream was switching from cassette to CD. Vinyl records were not only outdated tech but had been on their last legs for a long time.

There were still bands putting out records in the 90’s but they were mainly new bands and the vinyl releases were small and only served the purpose of getting a cassette out. Then the world switched from analog to digital so many labels asked, “What’s the point of producing vinyl?” A starting band could record a track in their garage on a 4 track and make a decent cassette. Today that process is even simpler. But there were bands that still recorded in Vinyl, and over time a small subset of people decided they missed what I like to call the religious aspect of music. The touch of the media, the physical process of playing, and the ritual of old tech.

Many bands, including rock bands, new age, rap, and even techno, started releasing and re-releasing their original recordings in vinyl, Led Zeppelin did not. And though, they did re-release their songs on vinyl in different sets the original albums were never released. Over the last few years they had made plans to re-release, finally. Originally it would be over a year but then they realized if they took their time they could add more tracks, so they switched to the idea of three a year. So I now have the first of three.

I had big plans for my record arrival with a special post used to relaunch my blog, I had been under hiatus since planting my garden, and had also moved it to a self-hosted address. I ordered the record three months before the release date at my local record shop so I thought this would work out perfectly. Of course, since the closing of the locally owned store I had to go to a chain store. I am fine supporting chains because at some level they are still local and they bring money back to the community though I will always wish I could have stopped in and talked about the release to the owner of Morning Bell Records in Jackson Mississippi. I remember going the day of the release and to my dismay, the record had not been shipped, they had plenty of the CD’s but not the records.

It wasn’t the fault of the store clerk, it was supposed to be shipped it just wasn’t because the chain doesn’t really care about the buying and selling of vinyl records. Of course, I may be too harsh, maybe they do care but figured the re-release would go over like a lead balloon and they wouldn’t have a problem with the item being out of stock. The clerk sadly told me he didn’t know if they would get it anytime soon.

So I figured I would just order it from Amazon then I would still have time to write my blog, but Amazon was now back ordered. I tried other online retailers and they too were back ordered, and though I better understood the problem the local store had in getting the record, I was still a strange mix of sad and angry.

Come to think of it, it was the same feeling I got when I found that the locally owned Jackson Mississippi store Morning Bell was closing. The store struggled to stay open for two years and I like to think that the owner, who had become a common conversant with me, would have made sure I had the record on time (whether that is true or not). The reason this is sad because some of us love the ritual of the thing as much as the thing itself. For me music is personal and all aspects of it should be. I don’t want to be 1 of 2000 people in a concert hall just to hear my favorite band. I would rather slow dance to the local blues guy with my wife in a small juke joint. If it isn’t personal I don’t have enough interest to sustain the show. And if you think that is crazy you should see me make coffee.

I envision a future where everything will be bought online and I get nervous. I am a fan of online shopping, but there are some things that will always be better local: fruit, vegetables, restaurants, and music. These are things that make a community a community and not just a collection of living quarters. It was sad that I couldn’t get Led Zeppelin I at the record store on the release date because it means that part of what makes a community a community is dying. I would have loved standing in a long line out the doorway to get my record that day it was released. I would have camped out. I wonder if there is a way to strike a balance, to have it both ways, Amazon.com and Morning Bell. How do we save community from ourselves?

Led Zeppelin I the deluxe edition comes with 3 records. The original studio recording and newly released live material. I will respond to this release in two posts. The first will deal with the original release material and the second the live material. Happy reading, and please leave feedback or tell me about your experience in music.

All About Fish and Feelings, Whatever Nevermind

1 Reply

My first experience was Nirvana was not from their ground breaking album Nevermind, nor was it from MTV over playing the video Smells Like Teen Spirit, no my first experience with Nirvana was through Weird Al Yankovic’s song Smells Like Nirvana. I was, at the time, a classic rock fan, I had never been too impressed with modern music so I encountered most of it through satire. I would sit and wait for hours for the video of Smells Like Nirvana to air on MTV. Of course during that time I heard songs, like Come As You Are, In Bloom, and Smells Like Teen Spirit.

www.heptide.com

I was just leaving Middle School when Nirvana hit the airwaves and I missed it. Of course when I found them, finally, they were the first band since Led Zeppelin or Queen to make any sense. Much of my music taste comes from hindsight, in fact, I missed most of it the first time, except the grunge. Once I found that style I never let go, even today I listen to 90’s stations frustrated with the lack of Nirvana. However, there is no doubt that Nirvana changed things for rock music. Glam Rock was reaching its panicle, men in sprayed on leather pants with hair do’s that cost more than most of my wardrobe were prancing back and forth on stage when Kurt Cobain stepped up in ratty jeans, old converse (from before they were popular), and a tee-shirt. From that point on, jeans and a tee-shirt were just fine for me, in fact even today I might just throw a blazer on top and go to work.

I remember hearing a story that when they made it big, Kurt was living in a van. Chris Novoselic said once, “We didn’t come to the mainstream, the mainstream came to us.” This one statement says volumes about the struggle that Nirvana and specifically Kurt Cobain felt about their success. This struggle along with the constant physical pain led Kurt to commit suicide, I remember coming home from school one day, turning on MTV like I often did, and read the scrolling words at the bottom of the screen, “Kurt Cobain has been found dead.” This was the first musician of my era to die, and I will never forget the feeling that day.

I was reminded of Nirvana the other day watching a rerun of the 2014 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction. I sat with tears in my eyes during the opening clip, the tears stayed throughout the show. Michael Stipe called them “lightening in a bottle.” I agreed. I agreed when Dave Gohl and Chis Novoselic gave their short speeches, and I agreed as Joan Jett sung Smells Like Teen Spirit. I remember thinking about how I would react if I were to ever meet those two men. I imagine I would hug them with tears in my eyes and hope to God that it didn’t come off creepy. I couldn’t help but think about what they were to me, I think I spent most of the rest of my life dressing like Kurt Cobain. They exuded frustration, and that was how I felt so I showed it. Their music helped me give voice to feelings I couldn’t consider touching.

I never understood teen spirit (the spirit not the song), pep rallies never made sense to me. In hindsight I appreciated my high school but while I was there I stood counted with social exiles, I was home there. Through the years the music may have changed but the caliber of people didn’t. We were to the social minority, we didn’t want to be football stars, we didn’t play basketball, and we weren’t ashamed to be part of the marching band. Most of my good memories of high school took place in either the band room or the theater. My lunch was spent with all the “others,” because they weren’t afraid to come as they were.

I never owned Nevermind, I borrowed my brother’s cassette and over the years had a few dubs. I bought this a few months ago as soon as I found it, and as I listen to this record over and over again, I sing the songs, often without thought, the words are just there. Funny, the first time I actually bought this album was 2014 and 180 gram vinyl. Nirvana’s lightning in a bottle fueled my teenage years. Through dating, break-ups, and embarrassing moments, I found my voice while listening to the often ridiculous lyrics of Nirvana, lyrics so pure I never had to actually consider their meaning, mine was good enough. Spoke the alien, “Nevermind.”