Let's roll some dice, watch some movies, or generally just geek out. New posts at 6:30 pm ET but only if I have something to say. Menu at the top. gsllc@chirp.enworld.org on Mastodon and @gsllc on Twitter.
Music has a way of evoking emotion, and I’m certainly no exception to that. I’m writing this after a trip to the gym. Like most people, I listen to music while I work out, and a particular song came up on my random music mix, inspiring this post.
There are two songs that oddly fill me with dread when I hear them, and one of the artists is one of my favorites.
I love Billy Joel’s work as much as anyone’s.
And then there’s this one.
Horrifying, right? These two songs make me very uncomfortable, and I don’t know why. It’s certainly not the lyrics. Just the opening of the song starts the dread. I did find this fascinating though.
— Rob Bodine, also gsllc@chirp.enworld.org (@GSLLC) November 29, 2021
I’m constantly listening to music, and yet I’ve never really enjoyed going to concerts. I love it when a bar has a live band, but I don’t buy tickets and go to concerts. It’s just never been my thing, except when it’s critical that I see a band live. I never saw my two favorite bands, Rush and Fleetwood Mac, in concert, and with Peart dead and Buckingham probably out for good, I never will. (EDIT, 7/29/2023: Well, shit.) That’s a shame, but here are the concerts that I’ve seen. All of them were must-sees for me.
October 10, 1986: Billy Joel, Capital Centre, Landover, MD. The Bridge tour. My first concert was for what was at the time my favorite artist. I saw this with my sister (foreshadowing!).
August 9, 1987: Night Ranger/Great White, Merriweather Post Pavilion, Columbia, MD. I was there the night before for Howie Mandel, then I came back the next day for this concert, which was also my first date. I chose Night Ranger over Chicago because I really wanted to see the Outfield (though I did, and still, looooove Night Ranger). Unfortunately, the Outfield cancelled and were replaced by Frehley’s Comet, who also cancelled, leaving me with Great White. I didn’t appreciate Great White then as much as I do now. Still a great show.
December 13, 1987: Yes, Capital Centre, Landover, MD. This was the Big Generator tour. Earlier in the week, I was on the University of Maryland’s radio station (my cousin knew the DJ well) hyping the show.
June 1, 1988: Pink Floyd, R.F.K. Stadium, Washington, DC. A Momentary Lapse of Reason tour. A holographic dogfight? Yeah, I had to see that, and I had to see it outdoors. Surprisingly, this was only the second best visual concert I ever saw. The best was . . .
August 8, 1988: Iron Maiden, Capital Centre, Landover, MD. This was the Seventh Son of a Seventh Son tour. It was the most impressive visual show I’ve ever seen, and the music was fantastic, and I was on the floor (10th row, IIRC), but my strongest memory relates to the concert t-shirt I bought there. As I was leaving the show, someone told me that I was wearing it backwards. I wore that damn thing backwards the entire night. I’m such a dipshit.
August 7, 1989: Mike and the Mechanics/The Outfield, Merriweather Post Pavilion, Columbia, MD. Vindication! I finally saw the Outfield! Oh, and MatM was pretty good too. I especially remember how much better All I Need is a Miracle is live. Unfortunately, there’s a weird and tragic memory attached to this concert relating to the first time I had ever really experienced death. This gets a bit convoluted, but bear with me. I never liked the Outfield song, 61 Seconds. So, every time the cassette tape reached that song, I flipped it, and it placed the tape exactly at the start of All the Love, which was a huge hit for them. As a result, I never heard Mystery Man until the concert. I loved the song, but for whatever reason took notice of the repeated, stressed use of the word, “goodbye,” in the song. It turns out, a friend (18 years old) was killed in a car accident that morning. That messed me up for about a week.
August 26, 1992: Bruce Springsteen, Capital Centre, Landover, MD. Springsteen is really good, but for whatever reason, this concert was just meh to me. In fact, I’ve said elsewhere that, prior to Genesis the other day, I had seen only 11 concerts. This is one of the ones I forgot because it had little impact on me. The other was . . .
August 11, 1995: Jimmy Buffet, Nissan Pavilion, Bristow, Virginia. This should have been my answer to the “worst concert” question from the tweet, but I didn’t recall the memory quickly enough. Buffett thought he was in the deep south, and almost all his songs were country music. I wasn’t a fan of it. He also played his biggest hits — Fins, Margaritaville, etc. — in the middle of the set rather than as encores. It was a rather strange choice. I still enjoyed the show because, well, it’s Jimmy Fucking Buffett.
June 12, 1999: Guinness Fleadh (Chicago: Van Morrison, Hootie and the Blowfish, Steve Earle, Black 47, Elvis Costello et al.), Chicago Motor Speedway, Chicago, IL. This was amazing. There was a ton of variety in the music played. I went because my late cousin, Ann Marie, came down from Madison, WI for the show and asked me to go with her. Elvis Costello was a huge disappointment. He played every song by himself on an acoustic guitar and spent more time complaining about modern music than he did playing. He was a buzkill. Van Morrison and Black 47 (who I had seen in a bar about 5 years earlier) killed it.
June 30, 2000: Dave Matthews Band, Soldier Field, Chicago, IL. This was an incredible show. You have to like his music, of course, but they’re remarkable musicians. Also, Al Green showed up and sang with the band! For this one, I had a regular seat, but Alissa snuck me onto the field.
August 8, 2002: Sammy Hagar/David Lee Roth, Nissan Pavilion, Bristow, Virginia. The place was surprisingly empty, but that allowed me to enjoy the show more than otherwise. (I really don’t like going to concerts.) David Lee Roth spent most of his set hitting on a particular woman in the front row. Ummm . . . the years had not been kind to her, but she was giving him the pop he wanted, so he maintained focus on her the entire show. We were all hoping that Michael Anthony would join Sammy for his set. He had done that at a few shows, but we weren’t among the lucky ones.
August 14, 2006: Billy Joel, Verizon Center, Washington, DC. My only repeat concert, I saw this with my sister and her adult son. We were behind the stage, so we saw the TV screen that provided Joel the lyrics so he didn’t have to remember them. Look, the guy had a lot of material going back over three decades. I don’t blame him. He played everything everyone wanted to hear. I missed Allentown due to a bathroom break, but my sister had it worse. She missed her favorite Joel song, Pressure, during hers.
July 30, 2017: .38 Special, Wolftrap, Vienna, VA. .38 Special was actually the opening act, and I left after their set. I was more interested in seeing the new Game of Thrones episode than I was sticking around. I saw what I wanted to see. The parking at Wolftrap sucks. Otherwise, it’s a good venue.
November 18, 2021: Genesis, Capital One Arena, Washington, DC. I’ve said enough about this already. Here’s the opening:
August 5th, 2022: Omega Concern (n/k/a the Rush Experience), Tally Ho Theater, Leesburg, VA. This was their first concert together.
July 28, 2023: Living Colour, Tally Ho Theater, Leesburg, VA. These guys are insanely good, and the show was fantastic. I’m so glad I saw them. Here’s a video from the show.
And here’s a tweet that was retweeted by the band’s official Twitter handle and liked by bassist Doug Wimbish, who we got to speak to (briefly) after the show.
— Rob Bodine, also gsllc@chirp.enworld.org (@GSLLC) July 29, 2023
We also got to thank Vernon Reid, but he was occupied with other fans, so we let him be. He most certainly did not snub us. He was just busy showing everyone as much appreciation as he could given how my attention he generated.
I’ve been to only 11 concerts in my life (as in buying a ticket to see a concert, as opposed to live music in bars, which I’ve done a lot). Why? Because I don’t like going, and I go only when going is really important. Needless to say, I’m pumped about seeing Genesis later this year. While not my favorite band, my favorite album of all time is their 1980 effort, Duke.
With the pandemic winding down, Wolf Trap and many other local venues have announced concerts again, and I’m so desperate to go out and do things with people (that isn’t work) that I may just double my entire concert-going experience this year alone. Among the local shows are Blue Oyster Cult, Black Sabbitch, Air Supply, Trombone Shorty, Toad the Wet Sprocket, Ann Wilson, Harry Connick Jr., Abba, Joan Jett, Three Dog Night, Bog Bad Voodoo Daddy, Bob Mould, Indigo Girls, and Train (with Vertical Horizon). I doubt I’ll see all of these shows, but if I did, that would more than double my lifetime concerts. Lindsey Buckingham is touring, but I’ll be in Las Vegas while he’s here. We’ll see how the summer shakes out, but I’m bound to see some of these.
I have a phrase I like to use. By now, you should know it, but I’ll repeat it anyway: Art, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. There’s a meme running around . . . okay, going viral that completely misses this point. I’d like to trash the meme, but it goes all “sociopolitical,” and I’ve already done my annual sociopolitical post for the year. Instead, I’ll address another meme that reimagines the story told in Billy Joel’s fantastic song, Piano Man. The song is actually about Joel during his early days playing seedy bars filled with alcoholics and underachievers. The meme could be said to be sociopolitical too, but I don’t see it that way, so here it is.
Now, there’s a problem with the theory of this meme: Paul never had time for a wife. This means that if would have had a wife if his priorities are different. Also, not everyone who’s an alcoholic, failure, underachiever, or sailor is gay. That makes the statement at the end, “yep, it’s definitely a bar full of gay dudes,” to be rather arrogant, but that doesn’t mean that one can’t fairly infer that it’s at a “gay bar.” It still fits, and you just ignore the imperfections in the spirit of having fun with the lyrics.
Another Theory: They Still Live
Well then, it’s no less legitimate to instead imagine that Piano Man takes place in the They Live universe, but in a sequel called They Still Live in which a few surviving aliens have recovered their ability to hide their true selves. Joel is playing to bunch of extraterrestrials and doesn’t know it. Why can’t Billy tell they’re aliens?
Because those sunglasses are just ordinary ones. Instead of a bunch of homosexuals having a betting pool, it’s a bunch of aliens wondering when he’ll figure out that they’re aliens in hiding. They’re reluctant underachievers because they must remain in hiding until they reclaim control over the Earth. Is this a perfect inference? No, but remember, neither was the “gay bar” interpretation. This interpretation also has no clear contradictions within the lyrics, so it’s just as good. So would any interpretation in which people, extraterrestrial or otherwise, we’re in hiding. I’m sure the song could be put to use in a pretty good Al Qaeda recruitment video, and I doubt Joel would approve.
Revenge of the Sith
Let me give you another example. This one’s more on point with the meme I don’t want to discuss. In Revenge of the Sith, Mace Windu, et al. attack Emperor Palpatine, a.k.a., Darth Sidious. The others fall, so it’s just Mace and Sidious going at it, and Mace gets the upper hand. He starts to reflect Sidious’s force lighting back on him. According to the dialogue, as wells as a (long-lost) interview with George Lucas, the reflection disfigured Palpatine.
I never bought that, and I think Kessel Junkie and I have discussed it.
My interpretation from the moment I saw it was that Sidious was already disfigured from his long term use of the Dark Side. Within the movies – I don’t concern myself at all with the Expanded Universe – there’s nothing in canon to contradict that. With Mace Windu’s attack, Sidious’s power was being tasked, so his veil dropped. Everyone was seeing him for what he really was. He initially lied to Anakin to complete his turn to the Dark Side, then maintained the lie to convince others of the treachery of the Jedi. That in turn meant that he no longer had to use a portion of his power to maintain that veil. Win-win as far as he was concerned.
Am I wrong? Not according to me, so why do I care whether George agrees? Why would he care if I disagree with him?
The point is that you can interpret art, especially good art, in a way that suits you, even if it contradicts the intent of the creator. Unless you’re way off base, your interpretation is as legitimate an interpretation as anyone else’s. Whatever makes the art work for you is fine.
As long as you’re buying it, the creators won’t mind.
I’ve provided my favorite movies, bands, and songs, and now we reach the last in this series: My favorite five albums. This should be the easiest of the posts, so I shouldn’t be such a coward this time. You’ll get your five. Again, however, I’m going to give you my favorite albums by the bands I mentioned previously, but my absolute favorite album of all time isn’t from any of them. Despite my methodology, though, this could very well represent my actual, favorite five albums.
This is an unusual choice for Rush fans, but in discussing it online with several other fans, I’m definitely not alone. I’m not going to go into this in detail, because it’s a personal matter. I’m simply going to make this vague statement: There was a moment in time when I truly became an independent person. For better or worse, this was a significant moment and a significant development, and Grace Under Pressure was part of my life during that moment of clarity. It’s tough to separate this album from that.
Rumors, Fleetwood Mac
If you’ve read the previous two posts, you knew this was coming. I was raised on this album. It belonged to my older brother, but I could listen to it whenever I wanted, and he bought it at a time when I finally had a choice of what music I heard. I had my own radio, so I could listen to which songs I heard on the radio, and from 1977 forward, I slowly started my modest collection of albums so I could listen to the music I wanted to hear when I wanted to hear it. Despite it not being mine, Rumors was the start of that.
Powerslave, Iron Maiden
As with GUP above, I think I’m making a choice that isn’t very popular among fans of the band. Yes, my favorite Iron Maiden song is on this album, but as with much of our attachment to art, this is about more than the art itself. This is about nostalgia. This was my first Iron Maiden album, and the music on it is solid from start to finish. I’m also a huge fan of the instrumental, Losfer Words, as well as the title track. I’ve spent many hours jamming to these songs on my guitar or bass (though I’ll never win an award for my playing).
The Stranger, Billy Joel
This album combines the positive qualities I’ve referenced throughout this series of posts. While the music is all from a specific genre, it’s diverse within that genre. Scenes from an Italian Restaurant is epic. It’s like an Iron Maiden or Rush song in that it has multiple movements, all lyrically tied together, yet clearly distinct from one another musically, producing one hell of an effect. The band has enough members in it to fully fill out the music. The instrumentation doesn’t include merely the traditional guitar, bass, keyboard, and drum set collection, but adds woodwinds and other percussion. Hell, there’s even an accordion in there. Joel is a native New Yorker. He grew up in the ultimate melting pot. This influenced how he collected personnel and wrote his music, and the Stranger is probably the best example of that from his discography. As far as I’m concerned, this was one of my favorite artists at his absolute peak.
Once again, I admit that this is all subjective, but there’s a pseudo-objective reason why Duke is my favorite album. As Duke was being written, you could still say Genesis was going through a transitional phase after the departure of Peter Gabriel. This was their third album after Gabriel left, and second after Steve Hackett left, so Phil Collins, Mike Rutherford, and Tony Banks were still trying to figure out what they wanted to do, even having considered for a time writing only instrumentals going forward. After finally settling on six songs that comprised the Story of Albert, the band realized they needed more music to fill out the album. Each of the members wrote two more songs. The result was remarkable.
Because the earlier six songs were telling a common story, Duke was strongly coherent. The later six songs mixed things up a bit to keep the album from being monotonous, but those later six songs were still connected to the earlier six, both lyrically and musically. In other words, you had a strongly coherent album of spectacular songs with just enough variety to prevent you from getting bored. The songs themselves represented a stunning bridge between progressive rock and popular music.
Of course, you must like this kind of music for any of this to matter, but that’s why I admit that it’s still a subjective question. In fact, many Genesis fans hate Duke because it tries to be both things, and to them Duke represents to worst of both worlds. Obviously, I believe it represents the best of both worlds. I’ve occasionally said that I’d be happy to pay full price for a concert ticket where Genesis got back together and just played Duke from start to finish. I’d need nothing else.
Subjectively speaking, Duke is my favorite album of all time. YMMV.
Are you kidding me? How am I supposed to do this? Bands were hard, and movies were harder, but songs are impossible. There are just too many deserving of high praise and to which I have a deep, personal connection for me to pick just five, but that’s been the thing for the past two posts. I guess I’ll have to give it a shot. While I have a clear favorite song, what I’m going to have to do is pick my favorite songs by some of my favorite bands. My sanity depends on it. There’s just no way to organize a list that large.
As alluded to yesterday, my favorite song comes off of Moving Pictures, and it’s Limelight. I have no connection to the lyrics, as I haven’t even had 15 minutes of fame, but that music kills me every time. I’ve heard that Alex Lifeson believes this to be one of his most emotional solos. For what it’s worth, I agree.
Landslide, Fleetwood Mac
Simply beautiful. The version from Fleetwood Mac Live adds in Christine McVie’s keyboards to really fill out the music. I won that album as a middle school dance door prize. It was the second album I ever owned personally, and at the risk of shedding my cowardice, I’ll add that Stevie’s performance of Rhiannon on that live album was one of the most powerful vocal performances ever recorded.
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Iron Maiden
Sometimes, white people just want to punch someone. Rime appeals to that instinct, but the lyrics are based on Coleridge’s classic poem of the same name, which certainly doesn’t endorse such behavior. The bass solo always amazed me, but I could probably say that about any of Steve Harris’s bass solos. Like progressive rock bands, Iron Maiden didn’t shy away from epic songs that would never get radio airplay. They wrote what needed to be written and took no short cuts. The result, as expected, was always phenomenal.
Summer Highland Falls, Billy Joel
My favorite Billy Joel song comes off Turnstiles, which isn’t his worst album, but isn’t his best. The album isn’t bad in my opinion — he’s my #4 artist of all time! — but not everything can be the Stranger, ya dig? (Oooo, foreshadowing!) Anyway, I love how the consummate piano player just sits down with his piano and pours out his heart. Sure, he lets the band in for a bit of it, but make no mistake: This is about a guy, his life, and his piano.
Number 5?
By now, you must be getting the picture. To avoid undercutting the concerns of my post on bands, I’m going to cop out yet a third time. No #5 for you!
Yeah, I’m a coward, but let’s do this one more time tomorrow. I promise you’ll get five entries.
Following up from yesterday’s post on my five favorite movies (sort of), I give you my five favorite bands. As this is all subjective, I can’t really justify my view by any objective metric, but I’ll be damned if I won’t try. Music is my favorite art form, so this one should have been tougher, but it turned out to be a little easier.
#1: Rush (tie)
What’s wrong with the people that don’t like Rush? No modern band in history can say that each of its members (or even just three of them) are in the consensus top twenty, of both music professionals and fans, for their respective talents. Geddy Lee and Neil Peart are often seen as the best bass and drum players respectively in modern music, and Alex Lifeson, while never given a #1 ranking, is solidly in the consensus top twenty. The songwriting isn’t silly and formulaic unless it’s the time for that. You can’t help but like what you like, but at the very least, this band deserves your undying respect for their musicianship. I, on the other hand, love this band’s music. I discovered it, and notably what remains my favorite song (q.v.) by any band, in middle school. The music kept coming until relatively recently. Oddly enough, I never particularly liked Tom Sawyer, which was the first song I heard from them.
Not only does this band get points for talent and songwriting, but they also get some serious nostalgia points. I was raised on Rumors. The fact that they had five members, three of whom were emotionally troubled songwriters, allowed them to produce rich, varied music packed with heart.
Here’s an interesting anecdote. Stevie Nicks wasn’t even two miles from me when she came up with the title to her masterpiece, Silver Springs. At least, that’s what I want to believe. As the linked map shows, I lived in Silver Spring, MD at about two miles from the exit sign that caught her eye and resulted in the name of the song. Rumors came out February 4, 1977, which is almost to the day when we moved out of that house. That’s when my brother bought the Rumors album and Silver Springs started to get some radio airplay as the B-side for Go Your Own Way. This band’s new music kept me going all the way through college. As soon as I was old enough to buy my own albums, I started going backwards through time and learning their older stuff as well, though nothing beats what was produced by the classic band lineup from Rumors, et al.
I also want to re-quote something an author wrote about the Chain.
Nothing sums up that song, that album, or my life better than that.
#3: Iron Maiden
I didn’t discover Maiden until freshman year at college, and they hit me like a ton of bricks. I was primarily a bass player, and Steve Harris is one of the best that’s ever picked up the instrument. Bruce Dickinson is no slouch with the microphone either. It’s not just the music, though. One of the handful of concerts I’ve attended was the Seventh Son of a Seventh Son tour in 1988 (not sure if it was the 7/24 or 8/7 show). Along with Pink Floyd’s Momentary Lapse of Reason tour (June 1 of that same year), I was floored by the visuals as well. These remain my two favorite concerts because of how those visuals added to the overall showmanship of the concerts. 1988 was a hell of a year for me, musically speaking at least.
#4: Billy Joel
For the longest time (yes, that’s a pun), Joel was my favorite artist. Sorry, Billy, but you’ve been demoted to #4. What a fall from grace (almost a pun), loser! Seriously though, this guy goes back farther than I can remember. Like the other entries on this list, he was top five the moment I heard his music, and he never left that list. He’s also the only headlining artist I’ve seen live twice. (I saw Black 47 in a small bar in Soho and then again at the Guinness Fleadh, 1999, but no repeats otherwise.) I saw him on the Bridge tour with my sister and then again decades later with my sister and her eldest son.
Number 5?
Sorry, but I’m going to cop out again. I can’t name a fifth band because then I’d be slamming the door on a bunch of bands I’d instinctively call “top 5.” I also won’t even provide an “honorable mentions” list (again) for fear of leaving some deserving bands off that one as well. I challenge you to do better. See if you can limit yourself to just five without feeling dirty.
The lesson here is that there are really just four at the top, and then a bunch of stuff … bunched together beyond that. Or I’m a coward.
To all these musicians, including the ones I didn’t mention, whose music I listen to repeatedly, I sincerely thank you. Technology make life livable; art makes life worth living.
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In February of 1988, I babysat for my brother’s birthday party. About 15 10-year-olds and only two adults. 🙂 We saw this animated movie as part of the party. It’s definitely a kids movie, and didn’t appeal to me even then (I was 19), but I was curious how well I remembered it. Besides, it’s only 75 minutes long, and I still listen to the theme song, “Why Should I Worry?” by Billy Joel to this day.
I looked up the cast and saw that Roscoe Lee Brown voiced Francis, which sent me down a rabbit hole. As soon as I saw his image, it lead me to this vague memory from childhood: Doctor Scorpion (1978). I can’t find any details on the plot but would love to stream it if I can find it. I’m certain it didn’t hold up well.
Oliver and Company streams on Disney+. If you have young kids, it’s probably a good watch.
Play What You Want 