Category: music

Les Miserables has closed on Broadway after 6,680 performances and 16 years at the Imperial Theatre. That leaves only Phantom of the Opera left from the crop of big splashy musical happenings that defined Broadway in the 1980s.

Usually musicals, even ones that have made a bajillion dollars and run for decades, close after they start to lose money and it’s clear that public interest is elsewhere. I haven’t seen any mention of how Les Mis was doing financially but I can only assume some combination of these factors was the case.

Me, I’ve seen the musical maybe 3 times and loved it. My first car, a crappy 1978 Volvo station wagon had two cassette tapes in the front seat, AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell” and the Les Mis Original Boradway recording.

I am no fan of the musicals but Les Mis got me interested (briefly) in the second French Revolution and the idea that Broadway can make an enormous work of classic literature as much fun as a rock concert. Purists scoff at this sort of thing, arguing that the movement started by Cats and amped by Les Mis and Miss Saigon made musicals less about theater and more about fancy sets and clever marketing. I couldn’t agree more. Without Les Mis and its brethren, there would be no Mamma Mia and no Disney footprint on the Great White Way.

All true, all true. It just doesn’t bother me all that much.

So I think the White Stripes are my new favorite band. I first heard them on an episode of “To The Best of Our Knowledge” where a guy named Steve inserted his own bass track into one of their songs and made himself their bassist. This is only funny because the Stripes are a two-person brother/sister outfit from Detroit. See, they dont have a bassist.

When they, along with The Strokes, The Vines and all those other Rock-is-Back, hite-people-yelling music stormed the airwaves, I pretty much wrote it off. Call me overly suspicious but it seemed like some vaguely racist way of the music critics establishment treating hip-hop as a fad by saying “Had enough of that rap business? Good, cuz’ we’ve got some real music for you now.”

Well the Stripes have won me over. Their bluesy, mod-pop reminds a lot of early Kinks and earlier Rush (Don’t laugh. Listen to the Stripes’s “Dead Leaves on the Dirty Ground” and Rush’s “Working Man” back to back.) Jack White has just the right kind of whine. Meg White is an amazing drummer who has only begun to reach her potential.

I hear they’ve got a new album out. Being the kind of fan who gets his “new music” info from NPR, I’m going to buy an older one and see how I like it.

My absolute favorite band, ever, ever, I-wrote-their-names-on-my-sneakers-in-seventh-grade-ever The Hooters are going back on tour for the first time in like a decade. Best remembered for their songs “And We Danced”, “Day by Day” and “Johnny B”, Hooters frontmen Eric Brazilian and Rob Hyman we also co writers and producers on many songs by Cyndi Lauper (including “Time after Time”), Patti Smyth and Joan Osbourne (including “One of Us”).

I, like a loon, have been subcribing to the Hooters fans yahoo group Melodica since I got on the web in 1995. Searching for Hooters related information was the very first web related search I did. On Yahoo, generation 1.0.

The Hooters New Official Site

Not that it hasn’t been said yet but the music Scott Andrew is doing as the Walkingbirds is just great stuff, luminious, sweet intelligent folk without being self-important or slight. And its all available free for download.

My favorite, “Gravel Road Requiem”, reminds me of when I first heard Matt Nathanson nearly eight years ago who quickly became my favorite folkie ever.

One of my most favorite musicians, Matt Nathanson, was on the KFOG Morning show this morning, playing a few songs from his new E.P. and announcing that he has just signed a deal with Universal Records, the biggest and badest label in the world. While on the one hand, I’m super happy for him and only wish the best for him and his career, I’m a little sad. I’ve seen Matt in concert at least 6 times since moving to San Francisco, have encouraged friends to check out his music, have hugged him after shows. Suzan and I had our first real date at one of his shows and many of his songs make up the soundtrack to our relationship. I even had a fantasy of finding Matt after a show and asking him to play at my 30th birthday. I was willing to pay whatever it takes.

Soon he’ll me too big for that–touring with other superstars, hanging out on VH1, his songs heard nationwide. While I think recognition of his amazing talent is long overdue, I’m sad that his music won’t be mine to evangelize about anymore. Everyone will now. Doesn’t mean I’ll like it any less. It just means that being a Matt Nathanson fan won’t seem as warm and cozy.

Check out Matt’s music here. You won’t be disapointed. Then tell me if this has ever happened to you.

My friend Jane has a list on her blog of upcoming concerts in San Francisco (bottom right hand corner). I have heard of exactly 2 of these bands which I can only explain via my complete ignorance of indie rock/college radio, that entire genre which I’m probably mislabelling because, well, I don’t know the first thing about it.

This probably makes me very uncool, as Suzan delights in pointing out, because when she was in the mosh pit during a Bad Brains show in high school, I was probably pulling out onto the highway in my mom’s Volvo, windows down, and wailing along to Bob Seger’s “Feel like a Number.” As we’ve talked about until we’re both out of breath, this means her musicial history is honest, rightous, full of significance and mine is that of a droid, marching lockstep with what The MAN told me I should listen to.

Chuck Klosterman, a former editor at SPIN did an excellent analysis of this phenomenon in the annual The Lives They Led issue of the New York Times Magazine (of course you have to pay to read it online. Stupid magazine). He was eulogizing the dual deaths of Dee Dee Ramone and Robbin Crosby (from 80’s metal band Ratt) who captured the Suzan/Kevin dualism pretty nicely. We are supposed to like the Ramones and all their unpolished integrity. We supposed to despise Ratt because of their conspicious hairsprayed populism. Is one more worthwhile than the other? I suppose, but how can argue that while keeping your own cultural elitism and prejuidces in check?

I don’t think you can. I’m not saying all music is created equal but rather that there is inherent and infinite value to hearing your own story in it. If you hear it in Ladybug Transistor, good for you. If you hear it in ABBA, good for you also. Your experience is your own, far as I’m concerned. It still counts, even if a millions others have it to.

P.S. None of this was meant as a slag towards my buddy Jane, whom I love. Just my first thoughts of the morning. I was reading her site, it triggered something, blah blah blah.

While I’m mighty glad the holiday season is pretty much over, I felt honored to spend Christmas Eve at the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir concert at Slim’s here in San Francisco. The group, multiracial, multigenerational and nearly 60 years in existence, has done this pre-Christmas concert since the mid 1980’s.

Now I get a vicous hankering for gospel music every now and then, even though I was born under the Star of David. And the OIGC, with their perfect harmonies and wailin’ like God Almighty, did not let me down. By the end, even though I still don’t have much of a voice to give, I was yelling “Sing It!” until the words didn’t come out.

Yesterday and this morning, Suzan and I have been holding a little celebration in honor of Joe Strummer, the legendary singer and songwriter of the band The Clash who died on Sunday of a heart attack at his home in England. The Clash was Suzan’s favorite band, a piller of her youth in the Detroit punk rock scene. I was younger and less hip and only really knew the band from his early days on MTV, its more popular later album Combat Rock and Strummer’s film work as a soundtrack composer and actor.

Last night, we watched several retrospectives of punk rock on television, played all The Clash album we owned. I gave myself a quick education on some seminal punk artists by downloading songs from Bad Brains, the Dead Kennedys and Social Distortion. More will follow today.

“The Clash was the greatest rock band,” said Bono. “They wrote the rule book for U2.”

The Clash will be inducted into the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame on March 10, a decision made earlier this fall.

Joe Strummer was 50. He left behind a wife, three children, his band The Mescaleros and inspired musicians and fans around the world. We will miss him (tip via Consolation Champs).

Suzan has been walking on air the last few days since three of her favorite bands from childhood (The Police, The Clash, and Elvis Costello and the Attractions) have been inducted into the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame. Me, I was much less cool as a teenager so I got an equally big charge out of AC/DC receiving the same honor. It’s about time loud, unironic white boy cock-rock got its due.

I love following the Rock Hall inductions every year because 1) It’s a study in baby boomers coming to terms with their mortality. As each year passes, the eligible class of inductees moves further away from the 1960’s and the Rock Hall establishment must contend with inducting Punk, New Wave and soon Hip Hop alongside the bands of their youth and 2) It inspires endless discussions between my college buddies Justin and Dave over who should be induced and why. We never guess correctly. We’ve picked Patti Smith twice and the Hall has inexplicably passed over her. The fun is in chucking the possibilities around.

Question then: Who do you think should be inducted? The rules are it must be 25 years since the release of your first album. Based on that, who?

Anil Dash has a eulogy to Jam Master Jay which gives me more solid evidence as to why he’s among the finest writers on the web today. How hard is it to pay tribute, admit your biases and and stay honest but not hokey in three paragraphs. Mr. Dash makes it look easy.

And “eulogy” means “song of praise.” Mine pales in comparison.