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Chris Stroffolino: August 27, 2006

Paying Back Some Debts (or at least the interest on them)

Ah, I don’t mean the economic debts in this case. The creditors may have the law on their side, but they stir no passion to them back, only neurosis and anxiety. I mean the debt I owe to what has inspired me, a debt that can be partially paid by writing or rock (or even cultural) criticism, but in order for it to be paid in full, I have to continue to create poetry, music, ya know, ‘make my life a work of art’ to inspire others as I had been inspired as a kid and protracted adolescence—-more like what Bob Dylan sings about in “Nothing Was Delivered” or what Elvis Costello means in “Pay It Back.” Here’s the second verse of Costello’s song: ‘And then they told me I could be somebody/If I didn’t let too much get in my way/ And I try so hard just to be myself/ But I keep fadin’ away.” That was always as profound as William Blake to me, as adoloscent consumerism which for a time could liberate me (and Costello and others) eventually gets in the way and can make even the most resolute self-possessed punk become just another butterfly collector (like that great song by The Jam). So, I hope my top ten list doesn’t just pour more cultural crap onto your junk heap and make you fade away, but I want to acknowledge some things I’ve loved, coz, hell, even producers sometimes have to consume (or diet and live off the fat of memories!)

  1. Karl Wallinger

    The lead singer, guitar, songwriter, etc. for World Party, in a recent interview by Chris Patrick Morgan in the San Francisco Examiner, is back on tour for the first time since suffering an aneurysm, which rendered him unable to speak. As Wallinger puts it, “I spent 2 1/2 years working with a trainer and I didn’t work at all for about five years. When you think you’ll never do something again that you love, and then you get a chance to do it, it’s really special.” To me, having suffered my own physical setbacks in recent years, this is very inspiring, and I wish all the best to Wallinger.

  2. The Pussycat Dolls

    Well, not necessarily. But perhaps it’s interesting that the nation-state of Malaysia has fined them for their ‘sexually suggestive’ routines and risque costumes. This of course plays exactly into what George W. Bush wants us to think the war in the middle east (not Malaysia per se, but other Muslim countries) is really about. But, frankly, I’m almost in agreement with the government in Malaysia—not that I have anything against risque costumes per se, and certainly am against government censorship, but I certainly agree that this musical act lacks something that could be called ‘soul’ regardless of one’s religion; and when Culture, Ats, and Heritage Minister Rais Yatim says the group took Malaysia ‘for a ride,’ I have to add, that this group (and the people who created and promoted them) also have taken certain Western ‘democracies’ for a similar ride. Uh huh.

  3. Mark Germano, “Rex Bob Lowenstein”
    I recently heard this song on the station KPIG (1550 AM), and though at first I thought it was a little too much like what I don’t like about, say, Harry Chapin (but you could almost set it to the tune of “Rock On” by David Essex and that’d be more fun)

    it’s lyrics grew on me. Here they are:
    REX BOB LOWENSTEIN – MARK GERMINO, 1989

    There’s a disc jockey in Hartlanberg
    Who works at W.A.N.T.
    He puts two or three eggs in him
    And he’s in your car by 6.00 am

    He lives for his job and he accepts his pay
    You can call and request ‘Lay Lady Lay’
    He’ll play Stanley Jordan, The ‘Dead and Little Feat
    And he’ll even play the band from the college down the street

    And his name is Rex Bob Lowenstein
    He’s forty-seven, goin’ on sixteen
    His request line’s open, but he’ll tell you where to go
    If you’re dumb enough to ask him why he plays Hank Snow

    Well, he tries to keep his talkin’ to a minimum
    He’s a Democrat, he’s a Republican
    He’s an ad man with a great voice, say some
    But when he spins those records he’s neither one

    He’ll talk to the truckers on the interstate strip
    The housewife and the car dealership
    And when his second wife left him for a paper millionaire
    He cried unashamedly right on the air

    And his name is Rex Bob Lowenstein
    He’s forty-seven, goin’ on sixteen
    His request line’s open but he makes no bones
    About why he plays Madonna after George Jones

    Now, one day a man in a pinstriped suit
    Took the owner of the station to a restaurant booth
    His pitch was simple, “you’ll increase your sales
    “If you only play the song list we send in the mail.”

    He guaranteed a larger audience
    Less confusion and higher points
    “But your drive-time jock won’t get to do his thing.
    “Hey he’s not half bad, tell me, what’s his name?”

    Well his name is Rex Bob Lowenstein
    He’s frequently heard, but he’s seldom seen
    His formula’s simple and his format’s big
    “I just play anything, you call and tell me what you dig.”

    Now Rex Bob David Saul Lowenstein
    Quit his job a week later, but before he’d leave
    He locked and bolted the control room door
    And played smash or trash till they cuffed him on the floor

    Well they drug him into court and the judge said, “Rex
    “I’ve got to lock you up, for what I’m not sure yet.
    “But your boss here says he thinks you’re wrapped too tight.
    “But, by the way thanks for playing ‘Moon River’ last night”

    And his name is Rex Bob Lowenstein
    He’s a flaming bell inside a tambourine
    He could play it all if he was just set free
    Just to find what the people WANT

  4. Erika Staiti
    Checked out a poetry reading at 21 Grand in Oakland on sunday June 20th, and heard some good written verbal pieces from a relative newcomer on the scene, Erika Staiti. Here’s an excerpt that grabbed my attention (I hope I transcribed it right):

    You gave me your hand but it had been bleeding. Acknowledgment of the bood would have made the situation worse. So our hands sat folded in your lap gathering blood as we spoke single-word responses to each other not being asked. I thought for sure this is love and swore to never resemble another again.”

    Perhaps wrenched out of context from a long piece, this may lose the impact it had on me as her words accrued meanings and complexity as the threads of narrative progression would emerge to be lost and found again in her reading, but I admire the way the speaker mixes a clinical tone toward a past attitude toward love with a gripping physical image that in other ‘hands’ would be unbelievably melodramatic. Thank you Ms. Staiti.

  5. Yuri Hospodar

    Yuri also read his poetry at 21 Grand on August 20th, an all too rare performance of one of the best poets of my generation. While his first book, To You In Your Closets remains out of print, Yuri’s new work confirms his greatness, especially for those who might be fans of the effusive passionate yet witty ‘personalism’ of someone like Frank O’Hara. I won’t get too deep here (you can read my lengthy essay about him in my 2001 book Spin Cycle which I still stand by, despite the criticisms of Brian Kim Stefans and others), but I would like to affirm Yuri’s poetry, and not simply as a charter member of what could be called ‘The Berks County School Of Poetry’ (which would also include C.A. Conrad, Candace Kaucher, and myself), but as one of the best contemporary writers, and performers, in America today (though I hear he’s soon to move to Australia—-so enjoy him while he’s here America!).

  6. Trailer Bride

    I first discovered this Bloodshot Records act (a great label I’m sure I’ll be writing more about; hell, I’d love if they signed me!) on an Austin-based podcast which aired on KYOU. Billed as a ‘damaged Cowboy Junkies,’ I’d argue that such ‘damage,’ makes them a far more compelling band. A twisted female theatrical white-trash attitude comes through with a swampy distorto-meandering guitar that is both gutsy and seems from another world. Alas, as this was going to press, I’ve heard that they’ve broken up—-hopefully to even better things.

  7. Bob Marley
    I heard “Lively Up Yourself” on the radio for the first time in a while, and, damn, was it fresh! Another reason Bob makes this week’s top ten is because he gave one of the best answers to an interviewer’s potential accusation of selling out I can imagine. During the late 1970s, when he had actually had crossed over into the pop top ten in England, an interviewer confronted him with the question: So many of your songs, Mr. Marley, criticize Babylon System, but how can you continue to sing them now that you’re reaping the fruits of Babylon? He gave her a slight bemused look, but didn’t lose his composure, then took a puff on a spliff and looked straight into her eyes, and said, “Babylon has no fruits.” Words to live by!
  8. Roseanne Cash, “Burn Down This Town”
    Also heard this song on KPIG. It’s one of those “what’s this about?” songs, the passionate conviction with which she sings the lyrics, which on first listen seem to be political, or, wait, maybe about a relationship, or wait, why does she repeat the phrase “the christmas tree just burnt it all” at the end of the middle eight. All I know is that she ain’t just riding on her dad’s reputation…
  9. Peaches, Impeach My Bush

    Nice to know college radio (in this case KALX’s DJ Fresh Pink) sometimes remembers its rockin’ (or punk) saplings. Don’t know about the entire album, but if the rest of this is like “You Love Me When I Get Mad,” which is a more rockin’ take on a similar theme as Joan Armatrading’s attempted ‘new wave’ crossover, “I Love It When You Call Me Names,” this Peaches track features Joan Jett) on screaming guitar, to help give the lie to the still oft uttered perception (by both men and women) that grrrrllls are responsible for the relative lack of rock on college radio these days

  10. Definitely Not! The Barenaked Ladies, “You Can Be My Yoko Ono”

    I know; judge not ‘lest ye be judged (but, hey, no such thing as bad publicity, right?), but I’ve always been dubious (even to the point of cynicism) of that craze that I started noticing around 1995 when a plethora of all-male, or mostly male bands, took on monikers that might suggest that they are in fact all-female, or mostly-female, bands. Oh, sure, maybe it goes back as far as The New York Dolls out of the way); maybe it’s me, but that didn’t seem as creepy as the male attempts at appropriation of female power in the era of Cat Power and Modest Mouse. Anyway, I guess part of the Barenaked Ladies schtick was to be a light, campy, even slightly risque kind of band, and I am not so humorless to be offended by them, I’m just bored at this particular form of ‘geek rock.’ And “Be My Yoko Ono,” while on one level a cute catchy ‘contribution’ to a public discussion in which she is still demonized,
    goes about as far as a well-intentioned liberal who’s a little smug about a feeling that he’s more clever and insightful than some might be. I’ll take “Woman Is The Nigger Of The World” anyday over this baby.