Magic Jewball

I’m backdating this because I meant to post it before I left. It is simply the only thing I’m listening to right now. Luckily, it’s eight minutes and change, so play it twice and that’s my commute to work. There’s a short version. It’s nice. The long one is simply fantabulous. It starts with the sound an LP makes when you pick up the needle too fast and the intro is extended and meandering and has a melody line that answers itself back.

The lyrics are trite, don’t worry about them. Somehow the deadpan way they are sung underlines them more than any emotion could.

I never liked this band. I owned nothing by them until this song. Soul Meets Body kind of makes me hurk. But this is IT.

Listen and just groove. Oh, you can watch, I guess that’s the point of posting the video. The visuals remind me of the way I listen to music: by myself and observing the world, both traveling and still. The “band plays in the cold” thing is kind of like U2’s New Year’s Day only a bit less snowy. But I don’t think it gets old.

If you are interested, this album comes out Tuesday and the band appear on Letterman the same night.

And you thought people in Israel couldn’t get more depressed!

Apparently, Morrissey will be playing Tel Aviv! And he has put together this adorable publicity spot to let the people of Israel know where to see him. That faux tattoo on his arm says “Israel” in Hebrew.

I’m blowing kisses right back at you, Morrissey! Chag sameach!

Hey, do you read my comments? You should! Kb had a great idea for me to share my fun running tunes with you via iTunes iMix and so it shall be iWritten, so it shall be iDone. There were only a couple of songs I have that aren’t in there but how much are you craving B-Movie anyway?

A few notes. First, avid Joy Division fans may notice that Twenty-Four Hours is on there and it’s got a lot of slow bits. I no longer run to it, but when I was beginning the Couch to 5k program, I really liked to warm up to it. It has 45-60 minute sections of alternating fast and slow and was just perfect. You may find it so too, otherwise, leave it out. You can hear the full song on the iPod Song of the Week page. Also, I left out the “walking warm-up” song, New Order’s Slow Jam, since it might confuzle other iTunes shoppers. You can always just search on it.

Second, several of the songs had terribly selected snippets on iTunes, so I’ve created better ones which include vocals. You can listen to both iTunes’ snippets and mine to get a better picture.

Lastly, here’s a reminder on how to get the song to start and end where you want it, either because the intro or outro are too long and non-inspirational or because you are creating snippets for your Couch to 5k run. Just click File, then Get Info, and cruise to the tab shown. Fill in the “Start Time” and “Stop Time” sections as you wish.

Click here to see my running mix! It will open your iTunes, if not your eyes.
Becca’s Running Mix

And now for those better snippets. Mofo especially is a great running song which isn’t done justice on iTunes. They actually just use a section I cut out! Oh the humanity.

Happy running!

Van Halen - Runnin’ With The Devil

This is going to be an interactive post. Pencils ready? OK. You know how on Sex and the City, Carrie always sat in front of her laptop and thought, “I began to wonder…?” I’m doing that right now!

Let’s back up a little. In my office at work is a giant duratran of Nirvana from the Nevermind era. (A duratran is the big square poster that goes in the lightbox display of a store - it’s made of a special material that lets the light show through). I don’t have it up so much because I’m a huge Nirvana fan, because I’m not, although I have all their CD’s and I still like them. It’s more because, well, I work in the music business and it reminds me of somewhere near the start of my career when I worked in a record store and Nirvana was shockingly getting bigger and bigger. I remember being amazed that the label would spring for the cost of the duratrans (they’re pricey) and reserving the space (even pricier) for a band like that when there were Mariah Careys about. And I remember when I bought Nevermind, I bought it on cassette because I only knew the one song they were playing on WHFS and I was afraid to use all my hard-to-find college dollars on the spendy CD. We only got one copy in the store. One! That’s what a small release it was. The reason I recall this is because the case was cracked and since we only had one, I had to switch the plastic cassette-case with one from a promotional copy of something else.

So why is this relevant now? The other day, I was sitting waiting for the subway (I got one of six seats - this is bad, it means I just missed the previous train) and standing right near me was a tween boy, like 12 or 13, with a backpack sporting a Nirvana patch. This is the part where I began to wonder. Can this boy ever really know and love Nirvana? Who has the better fan experience? The person who witnessed the whole mad scene, the sea change in the sort of music that was popular, the bitter end? Or the kid who was born after it ended and discovers them after it’s all over? And I ask this question from the other side too, because I consider myself a big Beatles fan but they broke up before I was born and I missed the mania, the screaming, the “oh my God the new single is out, he got married, they’re going to appear on Ed Sullivan” part of things. Can it ever be the same for me? Plus, I already knew it was this huge cultural happening before I started. I came to the music knowing it had changed the world.

But on the other hand, the music comes to me untainted, without any extraneous stuff. It’s just music, not lunchboxes, not gossip, not visuals. It’s a finished work, like seeing the TV season on DVD over one weekend rather than eagerly awaiting the next episode after the cliffhanger. I never had to worry about what Yoko would do to the Beatles, it was already done if there was anything to be done. The same as how this kid probably doesn’t worry what effect wacky Courtney Love will have on Nirvana’s output. The same as the young’uns in my office who think I bought the duratran on eBay. When I say it was from my store, the store in which I worked, and I took it home at the end of its run in the lightbox, they get that “gosh, Grandma, tell me more!” look on their faces.

By the way, I’m not comparing Nirvana and the Beatles, they’re just examples.

Anyway, this is the kind of thing that goes through my head when I’m waiting for the train and trying to ignore the whistling Spanish guitar-playing busker. The punchline, by the way, is that this boy was actually standing apart from his family (just like young Becca on vacation with her family!) and was a French tourist. So he wouldn’t have experienced “Nirvana changes American music” up close even if he’d been born years earlier.

And now, for the interactive part. Please make your feelings known in the comments. Can the kids ever be as big fans as the people who lived through the band’s heyday and watched it all develop and explode? Or is it easier to love the music when it’s only that, music, and not caught in a whirlwind of hype? If you’re not a music fan, don’t feel left out! You can talk about your lunchbox or Ed Sullivan.

Well, obviously the title comes from Stairway to Heaven, and Led Zeppelin are another group who already were legendary, had a member die, and broke up before I was aware but this post isn’t about them.

This is my favorite Nirvana song. If you can’t feel the line, “I’m not like them but I can pretend,” then you haven’t been a teenager.

Nirvana - Dumb

This isn’t my usual fun and entertaining post so if that isn’t your thing (and since I set up this blog to be fun and entertain you, I understand, believe me) you might want to come back, say, day after tomorrow.

Still here? OK.

I know there’s always lots of hand-wringing and angst when something horrible happens and it cuts close to your own bone. It could have been me! you think. This is my “it could have been me” so you’ll bear with me while I take a moment (or a post) to remember this one. And, well, if you love music, this could also have been you. It’s been exactly five years since the fire at The Station nightclub in West Warwick, Rhode Island and honestly, I find myself just as freaked out now as I was then. If you don’t remember, a lot of people who just wanted to hear rock & roll on a cold night packed themselves into a tiny club, sat through two opening acts, and then got all psyched when the headliner, Great White, played the opening notes of their set. That’s when it all went wrong. Pyrotechnics were set off, the ceiling was low, the soundproofing which covered every surface was ultra-flammable, there were few exits, the hallway out was narrow…. a hundred people died and scores more had horrific injuries. They were all ages, mostly working class, some were parents, one was in the band.

I sometimes try to analyze why this fire affected me so much emotionally and still does. Maybe it’s because I find myself in little clubs all the time and I see the way they are set up. I probably wouldn’t make it out of very many of them alive in that situation. Maybe it’s because I worked on one Great White album, although I never met them. But really, I think it’s simply because these folks, from what I’ve read, were super-excited to see a national act, a band of their youth, music they loved. And that’s me any day of the week.

This past weekend, there was an article in the Times about a couple of the survivors. They are deformed, scarred, blinded. Can’t work or tie their shoes. This paragraph in the story gripped me:

Many believe the circumstances of their misfortune — that they were blue-collar folks gathered in a scruffy club to hear Great White, a has-been “hair metal” band from the ’80s — also help explain the lack of interest.

But you see, that’s exactly what makes me care so passionately about them. Could anyone love music more than they did? And that’s why they died or lost loved ones or are scarred for life. Because they loved music and wanted to experience it, just like you and I.

I think about the people in The Station literally every time I am at a show, scoping out the exits before the music starts. But according to this article, people seem to have mostly forgotten. Most of those responsible are serving little if any time. The settlement, if any, will probably just cover the most pressing needs of the desperate survivors. The fund they have set up, as it stands, can cover six months of medical treatment. So, I just wanted to pass onto you the link to the Station Family Fund, in case you want to do something as badly as I do.

From an article in the Providence Journal linked to below:

According to Todd King, a board member and past president of the fund, [Howard] Stern was surprised to learn that the fund and the survivors were in need. “I thought those people were taken care of,” King remembers Stern saying.

“No one was taken care of,” King says.

You can read about the fund, how little they have, and where it goes, here, and donate here. Either way, just don’t forget them. And check the exits before you lose yourself in the music in that club.

Yeah, I picked 80’s pop-metal on purpose.
Skid Row - I Remember You