1984 was a great year. We were young, and life was beautiful. I attended my first two Detroit Tigers games, both 14-1 complete and utter humiliations of the hated, and for good measure Canadian, Toronto Blue Jays, on their way to leading the AL East wire-to-wire and winning the only World Series of my life, so far. If you want to remember that beautiful summer of '84 along with me (and Sparky Anderson)(and really, who wouldn't want to?), you would read Bless You Boys, and you would buy it in a union-shop bookstore. Hey, we could start a book club! Where was I? Oh yeah. 1984.
Prince released Purple Rain. Rick Rubin and Russell Simmons founded a little business called Def Jam Records. Krush Groove was filmed, though it didn't see the light of day in theaters until the following year. And no, that Sbarro's off of 53rd that the Fat Boys hung out at isn't there anymore. I checked. Although if you're up there, you may as well swing by 53rd and 3rd and pretend to be Dee Dee Ramone (whose own band, I guess I should mention, released the underrated [but still not very good, except for Dee Dee on "Wart Hog"] Too Tough to Die). An eventful year, you know? I haven't checked, but I bet there were at least three breakdancing movies released featuring Ice-T. And last but not least, the Minutemen released their ground-breaking, almost untoppable, kind of headache-inducing (but in a good way) double album, Double Nickels on the Dime, which among other things, has a Creedence cover on it. Need I say more?
Minutemen - Theatre Is The Life Of You
Boogie Down Productions - South Bronx (from 1987, not 1984, but still good!)
And I'd be remiss to forget the oft-forgotten Dead Milkmen/Detroit Tigers connection. If anyone wants to buy Jim Walewander's 1987 Topps baseball card, give me a holler. I'll give you a good deal, promise. I jumped from 84 again to 87, didn't I. Whatever. If the Tigers won the AL East, it's all the same magical year to me.
Thursday, June 29, 2006
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
D's Car Jam / Anxious Mo-Fo
I was riding in Dave's van this past weekend, and it really made me miss my old van. Vans, actually.
The first one, my first car ever, I got about a week and a half after I got my driver's license. It was a 1980 Ford 150 with a V-6, every body panel a different shade of brown or primer grey. Bought it with cash on the spot, and the couple I bought it from was obviously a little quicker than me, because once I got it home, it wouldn't start again. Bad alternator. It took a lot of hours of standing outside in a freezing Michigan winter with a blow torch and a cheap socket set to get that old, rusted alternator out, but once the electricity was flowing again that van was a thing of beauty. Jim, my sometimes friend who was sometimes a mechanic in his garage helped me duct tape the hoses in the engine together, then gave me a 50/50 shot of making it through a week long winter tour. It leaked gas, and took about ten minutes of revving the engine before you could get going, but we made it to Chicago, St Louis, Canton, wherever the hell else we were going and back home again in style. Of course, two days after we got home, the engine locked up. Oh well. I needed the scrap guy's 80 bucks more than the van anyway.
Moved up in the world when I got the second van, a 1986 Econoline. You know, the one with the two tone gray and red racing stripe down the middle. Seven hundred bucks, and worth every penny. We jacked a bench seat in the middle with four half-inch bolts, and for some ungodly reason spent too much time installing a flimsy wire cage on the back that didn't stop a guitar and two hundred bucks from getting stolen in the time it took us to eat a falafel sandwich in New York. Oh well. This one had a leaky gas tank, too, and for added excitement we kept the tail pipe from hitting the ground with a couple of wire hangers and some duct tape. Our tourmates were convinced that the van would explode, with the sparks from the exhaust pipe sparking the hole in the gas tank, and that we were seriously, strangely insane. We slept in that van for almost a month, and even played a show half inside it, on the loading dock of some community center in East Providence. Or was it West Providence? When we got back from tour, I worked another week at the flower shop, collected my paycheck, loaded up three bikes, all of my records and books, and drove the van to Chicago. Slept in it for a few days, rode around the city, completely forgot where I parked it for forty-eight hours, moved in someplace, moved down the street, then drove away a month later, to West Virginia and New York and San Francisco and back, this time in a different car, which is a whole other story altogether. By the time I got back, the van was gone, never to be seen again. Stolen by the city, but hopefully sold at auction to a good, loving home.
The Coup - Cars and Shoes
Lucinda Williams - Car Wheels on a Gravel Road
Kanye West f. GLC and Paul Wall - Drive Slow
Minutemen - D's Car Jam / Anxious Mo-Fo
The first one, my first car ever, I got about a week and a half after I got my driver's license. It was a 1980 Ford 150 with a V-6, every body panel a different shade of brown or primer grey. Bought it with cash on the spot, and the couple I bought it from was obviously a little quicker than me, because once I got it home, it wouldn't start again. Bad alternator. It took a lot of hours of standing outside in a freezing Michigan winter with a blow torch and a cheap socket set to get that old, rusted alternator out, but once the electricity was flowing again that van was a thing of beauty. Jim, my sometimes friend who was sometimes a mechanic in his garage helped me duct tape the hoses in the engine together, then gave me a 50/50 shot of making it through a week long winter tour. It leaked gas, and took about ten minutes of revving the engine before you could get going, but we made it to Chicago, St Louis, Canton, wherever the hell else we were going and back home again in style. Of course, two days after we got home, the engine locked up. Oh well. I needed the scrap guy's 80 bucks more than the van anyway.
Moved up in the world when I got the second van, a 1986 Econoline. You know, the one with the two tone gray and red racing stripe down the middle. Seven hundred bucks, and worth every penny. We jacked a bench seat in the middle with four half-inch bolts, and for some ungodly reason spent too much time installing a flimsy wire cage on the back that didn't stop a guitar and two hundred bucks from getting stolen in the time it took us to eat a falafel sandwich in New York. Oh well. This one had a leaky gas tank, too, and for added excitement we kept the tail pipe from hitting the ground with a couple of wire hangers and some duct tape. Our tourmates were convinced that the van would explode, with the sparks from the exhaust pipe sparking the hole in the gas tank, and that we were seriously, strangely insane. We slept in that van for almost a month, and even played a show half inside it, on the loading dock of some community center in East Providence. Or was it West Providence? When we got back from tour, I worked another week at the flower shop, collected my paycheck, loaded up three bikes, all of my records and books, and drove the van to Chicago. Slept in it for a few days, rode around the city, completely forgot where I parked it for forty-eight hours, moved in someplace, moved down the street, then drove away a month later, to West Virginia and New York and San Francisco and back, this time in a different car, which is a whole other story altogether. By the time I got back, the van was gone, never to be seen again. Stolen by the city, but hopefully sold at auction to a good, loving home.
The Coup - Cars and Shoes
Lucinda Williams - Car Wheels on a Gravel Road
Kanye West f. GLC and Paul Wall - Drive Slow
Minutemen - D's Car Jam / Anxious Mo-Fo
Thursday, June 22, 2006
History Lesson, Part II
I haven't been keeping up to date on the news, on what's happening in the world, at least not like I used to. I don't listen to much music that was made after the year 2000, unless it's my friends, and let's be honest, I don't listen to much of that either (no offense). I've been in a hundred places in the last year or two, and it gets old, trying to find a decent bar or chinese food or a bookstore, you know? Once you find it, you're gone, and you're driving down SR-52 and you start making turns and you realize that you think you know where you're going, but what you really thought was that you were on a different SR-52, and you're not headed toward TJ Maxx to finally buy some clean socks, you're actually not anywhere near where you meant to go, and of course the cell phone service is terrible. In that way, I guess, it's like home.
I got bummed when I thought I lost my copy of that new Nina Simone CD, then I was happy that someone had it, then I got it back and left it in my car like a dumbass and it got broken in half. How did that happen? No one ever sits in the back seat anyway. Oh well. This song, however, has been popping up on my random play a little too often to be just random, if you know what I'm saying. Not that I don't love my job, because I do. Usually.
Nina Simone - Work Song
I was listening to something, I dunno, Lupe Fiasco probably. I think. And he's great and all, but damn, he raps too much. Take a breath, kid, you know? Seems to be a common problem these days. And now that Dilla's gone, who will be around who knows when to shut up?
J Dilla - Light My Fire
I didn't like fIREHOSE, I think Mike Watt solo is criminally, offensively bad, and I think San Pedro's kind of a hellhole. But, this is one of the best songs on one of the best records of all time. What went so horribly wrong? I wrote a paper in English class about this song once, in high school. That may have been the only paper I wrote in high school, come to think of it. And it brings up my argument that everyone who recorded at least three albums for SST Records before 1988 should have a federally funded pension, so they don't have to make horrible "concept" albums to pay the rent when they're pushing 50. They could just retire in peace, to the old punk rockers' home. Actually, I guess my argument is that everyone should have a pension, but that would include Mike Watt. And anyone who was in Black Flag, god rest their musically-compromised-at-some-point-in-the-late-80's souls. I wonder if D. Boon had any kids, I guess they would get his pension...
Minutemen - History Lesson, Part II
And hey, guess what? The Tigers still have the best record in baseball. And the Red Wings suffered a horribly embarrassing exit from the playoffs. It's been a good spring in my personal Detroit sports world. Just don't ask about the Pistons, OK?
I got bummed when I thought I lost my copy of that new Nina Simone CD, then I was happy that someone had it, then I got it back and left it in my car like a dumbass and it got broken in half. How did that happen? No one ever sits in the back seat anyway. Oh well. This song, however, has been popping up on my random play a little too often to be just random, if you know what I'm saying. Not that I don't love my job, because I do. Usually.
Nina Simone - Work Song
I was listening to something, I dunno, Lupe Fiasco probably. I think. And he's great and all, but damn, he raps too much. Take a breath, kid, you know? Seems to be a common problem these days. And now that Dilla's gone, who will be around who knows when to shut up?
J Dilla - Light My Fire
I didn't like fIREHOSE, I think Mike Watt solo is criminally, offensively bad, and I think San Pedro's kind of a hellhole. But, this is one of the best songs on one of the best records of all time. What went so horribly wrong? I wrote a paper in English class about this song once, in high school. That may have been the only paper I wrote in high school, come to think of it. And it brings up my argument that everyone who recorded at least three albums for SST Records before 1988 should have a federally funded pension, so they don't have to make horrible "concept" albums to pay the rent when they're pushing 50. They could just retire in peace, to the old punk rockers' home. Actually, I guess my argument is that everyone should have a pension, but that would include Mike Watt. And anyone who was in Black Flag, god rest their musically-compromised-at-some-point-in-the-late-80's souls. I wonder if D. Boon had any kids, I guess they would get his pension...
Minutemen - History Lesson, Part II
And hey, guess what? The Tigers still have the best record in baseball. And the Red Wings suffered a horribly embarrassing exit from the playoffs. It's been a good spring in my personal Detroit sports world. Just don't ask about the Pistons, OK?
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