Three Of A Perfect Kind

I wasn’t sold on the whole iPod thing. Oh, I’d had an mp3 player by 2003 and embraced the small device. It held about 500 songs and I would almost daily change out some tracks while drinking coffee.

But, the iPods were pricier items and seemed to be overkill to me, clashing with my minimalist nature. Then I earned one as a bonus at work and quickly took to having 20,000 or so songs at my fingertips.

It allows me to pull up a playlist of early ’80s pop or ’70s light rock to keep things calm on the morning commute. And it provides a means of escape from work for short bursts during the day.

I manage to grab a handful of smoke breaks and I throw the headphones on as soon as I reach the elevator. Depending on the songs that shuffle up, I might be able to hear almost three songs before returning to my assigned spot.

I usually skip songs until I settle on one. Of course, it is my music, so I am quite fond of most of the stuff in there, but whatever pops up in the limited time span of a cigarette isn’t always the song I want or need.

So I surf.

But, sometimes, the first three songs that play are exactly what I want to hear at the moment. It’s like dropping a token into a slot machine and hitting three…what are the good ones? Cherries? Gold bars? Koalas?

Well, whatever pays out, I hit today. Three songs, not necessarily related in any obvious way, that made me smile as I enjoyed twelve minutes of blessed solitude…

Wall Of Voodoo – Mexican Radio
from Call Of The West

I’ve always loved Wall Of Voodoo as a band name. It simply speaks to me.

As for the band, it’s too bad that Wall Of Voodoo is only known to most listeners for Mexican Radio. The quirky song is an undeniable ’80s classic, but their first couple records are worth seeking out (and, to my delight, I happened across several last autumn on vinyl).

The Posies – Dream All Day
from Frosting On The Beater

In college, I received a promotional CD that was a sampling of Geffen acts and amongst the tracks were a pair from The Posies including the gorgeous Suddenly Mary. I fell in love with their flawless power pop immediately.

Through the years I haven’t always kept up with the band, but I have snagged a few of their releases and they haven’t failed me, yet. Frosting On The Beater arrived in the wake of grunge and as mainstream radio was beginning to embrace more modern rock acts. Dream All Day got some radio play, but the band criminally remained underappreciated.

John Hiatt – Shredding The Document
from Walk On

When I am at my work, it would be impossible for me to spit in any direction and not hit someone. Inmates have more space.

This claustrophobic situation makes those smoke breaks – and some music – such a glorious escape.

And being within earshot of so many folks who feel compelled to constantly perform makes Shredding The Document by the very talented John Hiatt a bit of gallows humor to me.

(and the closing lines where he “reveals” what his father said is a brilliant payoff)

Sam He Am (Somebody Give That Hobbit A Potato So He’ll Shut The @$%&# Up)

As an ESPN-watching male, I’m aware that I’m supposed to love the movie Rudy.

I don’t.

I’ve tried and, with dire viewing options the other night, I tried again. It’s nothing against Notre Dame or the story per se, it’s the title character. No matter what was going on, Rudy was blathering on and on about Notre Dame.

Half an hour into it, I was hoping that Ned Beatty, playing the father, would take the kid on a rafting trip down the Cahulawassee River and trade him to some mountain men for a jug of moonshine or some beef jerky.

At one point, Rudy gets a job as a groundskeeper at Notre Dame and proceeds to re-enact touchdown runs as his co-workers stare slack-jawed (likely realizing that, yet again, they will have to pick up this jackass’ slack).

Seriously, if real-life Rudy is/was as single-minded as he was portrayed, wouldn’t someone have eventually resorted to violence, if necessary, to get him to stop talking about Notre Dame football for ten minutes?

This wasn’t the first time that Sean Astin, who played Rudy, has driven me to distraction in a movie. In fact, he frustrated me in The Lord Of The Rings trilogy, too. All that bellyaching for boiled potatoes (or something) and his fussing over Frodo grated on my nerves.

Of course, Paloma and I did make the regretful decision to watch all three movies in (mostly) one sitting. I think I would have been irritable after watching The Big Lebowski for that long.

(actually, that’s unlikely, and I’d like to see a remake of the trilogy with The Dude as Frodo’s sidekick instead)

Tolkien seems to be an all-in or nothing proposition. I’d read one of the books and was entertained but not indoctrinated.

But, Paloma and I kept catching portions of the first movie on television. I can’t recall if she had read the books, but I know that she gets a bit googly-moogly over Viggo Mortensen.

(this is why I spend great amounts of time making sure that the two never cross paths)

So, so we rented all of them and set forth on our own journey. We started in late afternoon and made it through eight or so hours before fatigue bested us.

The next morning, after a lot of nervously dancing around the subject, we trudged onward toward Mt. Doom.

(it was Mt. Doom, right?)

How long were those three movies on DVD? Twelve, fifteen, twenty hours? By the time we were midway through the final film, there was no more joy, just a primal drive to keep moving, to reach the end.

Oh, they’re wonderful movies. There’s some amazing cinema to be had, but probably not in such a concentrated dose.

(though I briefly came back to life when the Ents appeared as I am a sucker for talking, ambulatory trees)

Nonetheless, much like Rudy, we showed grit, hung in there, and eventually reached the end credits.

Rudy finally suited up for Notre Dame in the final game of the 1975 season. It was November. I was a second grader and certainly more interested in dinosaurs than music, but, according to the Billboard charts from the time, there were songs that would be quite well known to me years later…

ABBA – S.O.S.
from Thank You For The Music

I snagged a used copy of ABBA’s four-disc box for a pittance and, though I like these Swedes, I’ve only ventured beyond a dozen or so tracks once or twice. I imagine I’ve heard most of the essential stuff.

I was a kid during ABBA’s heyday, but I still remember hearing most of their hits on the radio. S.O.S. has always been a favorite. It swoops – it soars – it’s ridiculously catchy.

Wouldn’t a bio-pic on ABBA be a license to print money?

Jefferson Starship- Miracles
from Red Octopus

I can’t say that I know much of Jefferson Airplane/Jefferson Starship/Starship aside from essentially the radio hits and 1984’s Nuclear Furniture (which, for some reason, I felt the need to purchase). I’ve always loved White Rabbit and I didn’t hate We Built This City as much as the rest of the world seemed to despise it.

As for Miracles, it’s a gorgeous track that always seems to sound better on a rainy day.

The Eagles – Lyin’ Eyes
from One Of These Nights

There was a time when, like The Big Lebowski’s Dude, I hated The Eagles. Perhaps it was their oversaturation on radio while I was growing up. Though they had called it a day, their songs seemed to be playing constantly.

And though Lyin’ Eyes got played as much as any of those songs aside from perhaps Hotel California, the harmonies and resigned tone of the song made it the one that made me pause on the station. Over the past decade or so, I’ve come to appreciate more of the group’s catalog.

Diana Ross – Theme from Mahogany (Do You Know Where You’re Going To)
from Diana Ross & The Supremes: The No. 1’s

There were a couple summers where I wore my hair in braids and my stylist was a clerk in a record store where I worked who spent nights as a popular drag queen whose specialty was Diana Ross.

(and none of that is made up)

Anyhow, Theme from Mahogany is a pretty song and filled with enough drama for a dozen drag queens. I can’t quite place it, but I seem to recall hearing the song playing in the mall with my parents during the Christmas season in ‘75. The memory is there, but I can’t bring it into focus.

The Who

So, The Who are playing the Super Bowl, which really doesn’t move me. The band sucked a lot of the air out of the building by announcing the set list (something I don’t recall anyone doing before).

I like The Who, but I’ve had a curious relationship to their music through the years and there have been stretches where they’ve been in limbo with me.

I can recall hearing The Who’s Tommy, Can You Hear Me? on the radio as a kid – maybe five or six years old. It’s odd to think that my parents would have the car radio tuned in to a station that would play The Who. I had a friend by that name at the time and the song kind of creeped me out.

In ‘79, I was a sixth-grader with little interest in music, but I remember hearing the news of the stampede at The Who’s Cincinnati show. I was watching a Purdue basketball game and the commentators broke in about it. And, as we lived across the border and the Cincinnati stations were our network affiliates, we saw plenty of coverage about the event.

Those weren’t the best years for The Who, but as I reached high school, the band was wildly popular with most of my classmates. My friend Bosco tried early to convert us with Face Dances.

I knew their stuff from radio and Athena got a lot of airplay in ‘82, but I owned a copy of Townshend’s solo album White City before I owned anything by his band.

I eventually got copies of Who’s Next and Quadrophenia – and even sat through portions of the latter’s film version on cable a time or two. I eventually owned most of their catalog.

There have been brief bursts where I’d focus on their music obsessively, but I also seemed to move on to something else pretty quick.

When It’s Hard and Athena arrived, I was still becoming aware of an interest in music. But the hoopla for that tour, billed as their final, was some of the earliest musical hype I lived through.

The Who have released little new music during my life as a music fan and, when they have resurfaced with a reunion of some kind, I simply haven’t had much interest. For various reasons, it just hasn’t connected with me.

I’ll be watching Sunday, but only because I’ll be watching the game.

Here is a quartet from The Who…

The Who – Baba O’Riley
from Who’s Next

Baba O’Riley was the song by The Who held in highest regard among my classmates in high school (Magic Bus would have been a close second) and it’s always been one of my favorites. In fact, if I put together a selection of jukebox selections as Whiteray is over at Echos In The Wind, Baba O’Riley would be an immediate add.

It’s simply epic.

The Who – Behind Blue Eyes
from Who’s Next

Not only was Who’s Next the first album I ever owned by The Who, but it’s hands down my favorite. There really isn’t a single track which I don’t like.

As for Behind Blue Eyes, the dynamics and tension of the song never fail to draw me in.

The Who – Who Are You
from Who Are You

Who Are You was released when I was just starting to become intrigued by music and, though hardly the group’s biggest hit, the title track got a lot of airplay on the Top 40 stations I had started checking out.

The Who – Eminence Front
from It’s Hard

By the time It’s Hard arrived, my tentative interest in music was quickly becoming an obsession. I dug Athena, but I was more excited to hear Eminence Front on the radio with it’s shimmering, twitchy intro, slinky melody, and Townshend’s barked vocals.