The Austin Zeitgeist And Her Eyes

Mid to late 80s Austin, for me, will always live in my head as a perpetual summer: sun-drenched Shiner Bock-soaked days filled with music, cheap Tex-Mex and shiny happy people at the zenith of their lives. Also, of course and most importantly, the time and place that gave rise to my daughter, both figuratively and literally.

To me, no band better perfectly encapsulates all of this then Zeitgeist / The Reivers. "In Your Eyes," with its jangly guitars, harmonies and memories of Liberty Lunch, might as well stand in for all I miss of that moment in time and place that is forever lost to me, one of the many placeholders, memory hooks and focal points that will none the less always keep me connected to Adrianna. In a bit of synchronicity, the day after I wrote the above we received some news that has made me happy for the first time in almost two months: We had decided that morning that Adri would have wanted to donate organs to help others, and UT Southwest sent a letter of thanks and says that two people have had their sight restored because of her.

I cannot overstate how good this has made me feel. Her last act was one of kindness, and a part of her is still with us and this news just fills me with hope and contentment, and I so appreciate them taking the time to let us know result of her gift.

“In Your Eyes” will forever take on new meaning for me now. Adrianna's beautiful eyes live on, and the world, to me, is just a bit better than it was yesterday.

Here's the video for "In Your Eyes." Let's pretend we're watching 120 Minutes on MTV for a moment:

Your Name

A song written for A d r i:

Your Name

Just A Test

My dear wife and I wrote a song together a few years ago. I like it fine, but really this is a test to see how this method of streaming audio works on Blogger, because I don't want/am too cheap to pay for a monthly account at Hipcast.com or what have you.

Click on title for streaming audio:

Nobody's Child

You Spin Me Right Round

Speaking of records, when I was eight or so my stepdad was letting his old band practice in our basement on Friday nights. This was around 1971 or so, and they did covers of bands like Rare Earth, The Guess Who, CCR, etc. I eventually got to keep the 45s they used to practice to, and thus is was years before I realize that "Get Ready" was originally a Temptations song, or that Frijid Pink playing "House Of The Rising Sun" on the Parrot label was not the originator, either. But I digress. The point is I loved how those labels looked... the twisted tree, vulture, and dark orange background of the Rare Earth label, and the parrot with the straw hat on the Parrot label, in particular.

I saw some of these labels before I knew how to read, and thus always associated the songs on those labels with those images. They were so much more interesting that the dull bell-on-gray-background that was the label of my "I Think I Love You" b/w "Doesn't Somebody Want To Be Wanted" Partridge Family 45 that I purchased at Korvettes.

Later, when I was about 11, I sold all those old 45 singles to my then 8 year old sister for 10 cents each. The transaction was nullified a few hour later when she went crying to our mom that I'd cheated her out of her hard-earned allowance. After that, I lost track of those records, which is a shame, because I'm betting that they'd be worth a bit more than 10 cents each today.

Of course, this is if they were sold on eBay or something, not at my store.

Recommended Site

One of my coworkers has a new blog that I'd like to recommend: Jukebox Mafia. He's one of the vinyl guys at the store, and as such has access to and vast knowledge of old, obscure, interesting 45 recordings. The best of which (or worst?) he is now putting on his blog, complete with scan of the label, mini review, and streaming and download links. It's nifty-fab, so please check it out.

Before And After With The Reivers

"In Your Eyes", 1987:



Last Saturday at their reunion, 21 years later:

The Reivers - The Other Side

Circa 1991

Finally

So, in 1987 when The Cure's Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me first came out, it was a double album in vinyl, but a single CD. It was just a tad too long to fit on one CD, so they left out one song, Hey You! Since I was at that point only buying CDs, I never got that song. Of course, they can make CDs a bit longer, now, and you can now buy a version of that CD that includes Hey You! (including an entire extra disk of demos and outtakes)... but of course I didn't know that until today. Now, however, what with the joys of iPods, I've added that song where it belongs (track number 8) and can thus finally listen to the album as Robert Smith intended!! Yay me!!

When Today Is A Long Time Ago

My favorite musical has always been Carousel (imdb - wiki - official R&H site). I'm not alone, since Time named it the best musical of the 20th Century, and Richard Rogers and Oscar Hammerstein considered it their personal favorite as well. In a genre replete with bright-shiny faces, comedy, and happy endings, Carousel is much-welcomed anomaly.

I know it's hard picking "the best" of anything. I have a hard enough time selecting "the top 10" of anything, be it movies, songs, books, albums, bands, or whatever. But for me, Carousel as best musical is kind of easy. This despite the fact that Carousel was a box-office flop as a movie, and despite the rather uncomfortable take it has on domestic abuse. The latter is a more serious reason to dismiss the musical, but for me, at least, the songs are just too strong, too powerful, too moving, and too well-crafted to toss this work on the apocryphal "junk heap of history" simply because Julie Jordan says that "It is possible dear, for someone to hit you, hit you hard, and it not hurt at all." If I could excise that line, I would. But I can't, and thus I'm left with the music.

The best song in the best musical is also a somewhat easy call: "Soliloquy." (lyrics). This is the song that basically captures the inner dialog Billy Bigalow is having with himself (is there any other kind of inner dialog?). In this single song we see the transformation of Billy from a self-centered braggart to someone actually concerned with the fate of his unborn child, realizing that he has a responsibility that must be met, etc. It redeems the musical, for without it Billy would simply be a lout.

The song's structure captures this. It starts upbeat, with Billy in full "I'm going to have a son who will be just like me, lucky boy!" mode, then slowly evolves in a more thoughtful, poignant tone as it dawns on him that he could just as well be the father to a girl as a boy. This all could have been handled in a trite, schmaltzy manner (and I guess some would argue that it was), but instead the song, to me, becomes the crowned jewel of the song catalog of Rogers and Hammerstein. Considering how many wonderful songs these men were were responsible for, this is saying a great deal indeed.

I may not cry at Beauty and The Geek, or during that scene in the last episode of the British version of The Office when Dawn finally goes to Tim or what have you, but I do sometimes (almost) cry when listening to Soliloquy. That has to count for something, no? ;-)

But wait. There's more. There's If I Loved You, You'll Never Walk Alone, The Carousel Waltz, When I Marry Mr. Snow, When The Children Are Asleep, June Is Busting Out All Over, What's The Use In Wonderin'... my god. What a line up. I'd put If I Loved You, especially, up against anything that's been written since as a love song, or rather a "if-I" love song.

So watch it sometime, even if you find the above-quoted line from Julie Jordan reprehensible. At least there's not rape (Seven Brides For Seven Brothers) or forced sexual servitude (Paint Your Wagon). But there is great music.

Austin Bands That Should Have

From what turned out to be the wasteland that was the mid to late 80s Austin, TX music scene:

The Reivers (aka Zeitgeist)
True Believers
Wild Seeds

'Nuf said.

Honorable mention:

Charlie Sexton, Doctor's Mob, Omar And The Howlers, and a host of others I can't be bothered to link to right now.

*** UPDATE ***

Go here for some examples from the above bands. (First sign into your Yahoo acct).

*** END UPDATE ***

BS

When I was in high school the local album rock radio station (I'm pretty sure it was The Zoo, KZEW, 98 FM for those playing at home) used to occasionally do a "BS Weekend". During this event, they'd play songs and albums by artists with initials "BS". You get it?! [1] Examples included Bob Seger, Black Sabbath, Boz Skags, Buffalo Springfield, Bon Scott (AC/DC), Billy Squire, Brian Setzer, and of course Bruce Springsteen (luckily Brittany Speers wasn't even born yet; not that this station would have played her).

Back in the day, I couldn't stand Springsteen. I lumped him in with all the other "blue collar rock" that I didn't like, which included fellow BS'er Bob Seger. However, I changed my tune (get it?) after the Born In The USA album... though not for the title track, which to me was more of the same stuff I didn't like, but rather for songs like "I'm On Fire" and "Dancing In The Dark" (the latter thanks to the video, where Bruce is presented clean shaven and well-washed; this helped me, believe it or not, finally realize he was more than a bar band/blue collar/plain ol' rock 'n roller).

Anyway, I've since come to enjoy and appreciate all of his stuff (though still not "The River"). I really really like the Born To Run album, and especially the first cut, "Thunder Road". Lovelovelove that song. Anyway, my point here is that today the Born To Run album was rereleased, complete with not one but two DVDs... one a "making of the album" and another a live concert from 1975 filmed in the UK.

I listened to some of the CD on the way home from Best Buy (note: if you buy it at Best Buy, you get a bonus CD single of 'Born To Run/Meeting Across The River. Yet another reason to avoid WalMart, which has it for $2 cheaper, no matter what Tom says), and truth be told the new mix or whatever didn't sound much different. However, I love the packaging.

It all comes in a long box, but in the box is a book the size of a CD case, along with the four disks mentioned, each in its own cardboard case. Now the nifty thing is that the Born To Run audio CD's case looks exactly like the original album sleeve. Those of you who have it will remember it opens up like a double album opens up, with the lyrics printed on the two inside sides, and if you open it and look at the front/back it makes a big picture, with Bruce leaning on Clarence Clemons. You could never get this same effect with the original CD. I like it. It's a mini version of the real vinyl album. A replica, if you will. The Beatles did this, too, with a special edition of The White Album. It, too, looked exactly like the original vinyl album, complete with the four "collectible, suitable for framing" pictures of each of the Beatles, along with the poster. You should get it if you can still find it.

What's more, the actual CD looks like the actual vinyl record. In other words, it's black with little grooves painted on it, and the original red Columbia record label in the center. Here's a pic of it over on that other site. It looks like a mini version of the actual album. When I hold the CD and the cover I feel like a giant. ;-) The underside of the CD, moreover, is pitch black, not the usual silver or gold, which helps complete the illusion.

Nifty keen-0 and zany.

I haven't watched the DVDs yet, but I saw a clip on Amazon and it looks good. The Amazon clip is them doing "Born To Run". It's funny, because the song was new and had yet to become the anthem it later became. It's interesting watching it remembering that fact.

[1] BS = bullshit

Pre-Sophomore Slump

...or, Best Debut Albums.

Okay, this is just off the top of my head. I refuse to do research until/unless I'm being paid at least $1/word for my output. Therefore, I'm sure I'll be forgetting/omitting obvious candidates. Also, these have to be true debuts, and thus Green Day's Dookie, Tripping Daisy's Bill, Nirvana's Nevermind, etc, don't count since they weren't first releases, even though they were first major releases. Also, I don't count EPs as first releases, and thus even though the Chronic Town EP preceded it, I still will count REM's Murmur, since it was the first full length release.

In no particular order:

• The Cars - The Cars. What can I say? Catchy song after catchy song, and all in a genre that was basically their own.
• The Pretenders - The Pretenders. Very good stuff. Ballads to pseudo punk and everything in between. Any album that has songs such as Brass In Pocket and Tattooed Love Boys on the same release, let alone a debut, has to rank right up there.
• Boston - Boston. Okay, not many songs, and they sound a bit dated now, but still.... an extremely strong debut. Who knew they'd only average an album every decade or so?
• Foo Fighters - Foo Fighters. Who knew that this oeuvre of work was lying dormant behind the drum kit during the Nirvana years? Sort of like Phil Collins and Peter Gabriel-era Genesis, with the major difference being that Grohl doesn't suck.
• REM - Murmur. Oh my god. What an album. I loved it when they seemed to be my own little secret during the IRS label days. Then came the singles The One I Love and Losing My Religion and everyone was in on it. Oh well, one shouldn't be selfish.
  
• Pearl Jam - 10. Before they got a bit too self-important, they were a very good band with strong tunes. Then they got a bit self-important. Maybe they can eventually follow the complete U2 model.
• Timbuk 3 - Greetings From Timbuk 3. It's a shame that most just know The Future's So Bright I Gotta Wear Shades from this album, as really and truly that is probably the weakest song on the disk. This was the last vinyl I bought, and I bought it at the now-defunct Sound Exchange on The Drag in Austin after seeing the duo perform a couple of blocks down the street at The Hole In The Wall. I love this album, but especially like Friction.
• New Bohemians - Shooting Rubberbands At The Stars. (Or maybe you know them as "Edie Brickell And...."). Lovelovelove these songs. This was a great live band back in the day in Deep Ellum (Dallas, TX). They could jam à la Phish and The Dead, yet they never got quite as monotonous as those bands. Plus they had Edie, who was a great story teller. You could sit for hours hearing her tell about this squirrel in her neighborhood while the band kept a nice little beat going. While the album doesn't capture this energy/free spiritness (I know, that's not a word), it does capture the sonic and lyrical quality of their music. Circle, The Wheel, and of course What I Am are standouts in an album full of stand outs, really.
• Elvis Costello - My Aim Is True. A pop virtuoso is born. 'Nuf said.
• Led Zeppelin - I. Blues meets heavy metal whose DNA recombines with Druid mysticism to give birth do The Golden Gods. It would only get better from here (well, if we forget about Presence).
• Stone Temple Pilots - Core. These guys always got a bad rap about being Pearl Jam clones. I, for one, actually enjoyed STP more than PJ. Slightly better pop sensibilities in their songs without sell0ut or self importance. PJ became a parody of themselves, whereas STP moved forward. Who knows what would have happened if Scott Weiland didn't have such an addictive personality.
• The Velvet Underground - The Velvet Underground With Nico. Hell, this is where you find Heroin and Venus In Furs. What more do you want? Okay, how about Femme Fatale, I'm Waiting For The Man, There She Goes, and I'll Be Your Mirror? Okay. Stop questioning me on this stuff.
  

Well, that's ten (this is a test), so I'll stop. Yeah, I know the list is skewed towards older stuff, but what can I say? I just haven't bought a CD from a new band that's blown me away in quite the same manner that the above debut albums blew me away (and keep blowing to this day).

Feel free to make your own suggestions and maybe I'll post an updated list (Hahahahaha).