In their never ending quest to fuck over the poor, the working class, and the middle class, republicans in Arizona (and we could just say republicans, period), have added a provision to collecting unemployment insurance: if one is offered a job paying 20% more than your weekly unemployment stipend one is required to take the job or have your benefits cut off (keep in mind, too, that you've been paying into the unemployment fund through payroll taxes your entire career). For those wondering, unemployment checks in Arizona are a whopping $240 a week, so if you're offered $288 a week, regardless of your skill set, you have to take it. All of which means it you were an accountant making $50,000 a year who suddenly got laid off, Kentucky Fried Chicken can offer you $7.00 an hour for forty hours a week, and the skills you spent a lifetime training for and honing will go to waste so you can come home smelling like Crisco every day.
Give republicans a few more years and they'll be enacting laws to make slavery legal again. No sense in the Koch brothers paying minimum wage when they can own you and make you work for gruel, a straw mat in a shed, and ass whippings...
I have to admit to being surprised, even though at the time it came out I'm sure I read over it, that "Heroin" was listed at #455 on Rolling Stone's list of the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time". While it certainly isn't your prototypical rock and roll tune, it's definitely one of the ten best, probably one of the five best, and maybe even the best rock and roll song ever written.
As with a few other artists featured here on FNJ, there really isn't much my meager writing abilities can add to the legacy of the Velvet Underground. There have been numerous books, articles, and blog posts written about one of the most influential bands in the history of rock and roll, but keep in mind that the band released a total of five albums, never had even the slightest sniff of commercial success, went through numerous incarnations in their, more or less, eight year (1964-1972) career, and they were still considered the #19 greatest band of all time in Rolling Stone's list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time" (and is proof that Rolling Stone isn't always wrong...). They did reunite a time of two in the nineties, and the last time they played together was at their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996. Sadly, of the band's four core members--Lou Reed, John Cale, Sterling Morrison, and Maureen Tucker--only Cale and Tucker are still with us.
Lou Reed originally wrote "Heroin" in 1964 while he worked as a songwriter for a record company, which, surprisingly enough, wasn't interested in a song about shooting narcotics into one's veins. The song was worked on for a few years before being released on the Velvet Underground's debut album, The Velvet Underground & Nicoin 1967. Needless to say, there weren't a lot of radio stations playing a song about shooting narcotics into one's veins in 1967, so there'll be no call outs for the Billboard Hot 100 this week. The album would go on to sell approximately 30,000 copies, never getting higher than #198 (kind of weak bullet?) on the Billboard 200, but would end up at #13 on Rolling Stone's "500 Greatest Albums of All Time." A reminder that time can often be kind....
As noted above, there isn't much I can add to the song's legacy any more than I can to the band's legacy, but in taking the time over the past several days to listen to it again and again, I couldn't help but notice (as one who followed Reed's career from the early 80's onward), how much the guitar sound that Reed uses in "Heroin" would remain with him throughout his career. I was surprised how much I hadn't noticed Maureen Tucker's drumming in the song (one can't help but be overwhelmed by Reed's deadpan vocals, the jangly guitars, and Cale's screaming electric viola) before, and how essential it is to the song's greatness. Listen closely (and whether it was conscious or not, I've never read) you'll hear how much it sounds like a heartbeat, rushing up and down, one would suppose, as a heroin user's would. I'm not a fan of the drug culture, and I'd rather do a swan dive from the Golden Gate Bridge than stick a needle full of heroin into my veins, but the song, and the Velvet Underground's interpretation of it, is one of the most powerful musical listening experiences I've ever had. I don't know that rock and roll ever has really risen to be an art form in the way literature or film have, but "Heroin" is about as close as any rock and roll song has ever come.
Lyric Sheet: "I don't know just where I'm going/But I'm going to try for the kingdom, if I can/Cause it makes me feel like I'm a man/When I put a spike into my vein..."
In the aftermath of another school shooting, this time at Santa Fe High School in Texas in which eleven families lost a child, Oliver North, the latest in a long line of idiots who have been installed as the President of the NRA, pronounced that the mass of school shootings that occur in America were caused by too many boys being on Ritalin.
As the parent of a child with ADHD, and one who has been dealing with the medications used to treat it for nearly nine years, I can assure you that Ritalin (or any other medication used to treat ADHD) is most certainly not the fucking cause of the shootings you fucking idiot. Ritalin, and all other medicines used in the treatment of ADHD, is a stimulant that acts as a calming measure for hyperactivity and helps children (not just boys) to focus their thoughts better. Although it's obvious to anyone who isn't an idiot that the cause of the multiple mass shootings at schools in the United States is that we have too easy access to guns, it's much more likely that the shooters were not on ADHD medication than it is that they were.
But I should have expected nothing less from the NRA, who in making its choice for its next President, selected a man who was convicted (later overturned on a technicality) for his crimes in the Iran-Contra scandal, and who, in all likelihood, was a traitor to his own country.
It's right back to the 70's--though I've only been familiar with this one for a handful of years now, and discovered it, of all places, while reading a comments thread concerning baseball. That's one of the many wonderful things about music (and the internet, for that matter): you never know where you're going to find that next gem of a song.
The Undertones formed in 1974 in Derry, Northern Ireland, and had a nice run for their first nine years in which they released three albums that reached the top twenty in the U.K. They then proceeded to break up before reuniting (with a new lead singer) in 1999, and they subsequently released two more LPs, and continue to tour to this day. Unfortunately for the band, they never had any success in the U.S. (though this week's tune is a staple on virtually every 70's punk retrospective released since its debut), but even without it have managed, as so many other FNJ artists have, to make a fine career out of what success they did have. Original lead singer Feargal Sharkey (and what a great rock and roll name that is) had a modicum of success here in the States (and a #1 hit in the UK) with his single "A Good Heart" (which emaycee highly recommends for the uninitiated--it's a damn fine pop tune). Overall, the Undertones have released six albums (with one top ten in the UK), fourteen singles (again with one top ten), and have a couple of showings on UK best of all times lists.
Originally released as a single only in 1978, "Teenage Kicks" would go on to reach #31 (with a bullet? not particularly familiar with the charts in UK...) on the UK charts, and would be added to their debut album, the oh-so-aptly titled The Undertones, upon it's re-release in October of 1979. "Teenage Kicks" was given an extra boost by famed BBC Radio 1 DJ, John Peel (his Peel Sessions introduced many a great new band to his listeners), who played it regularly in his rotation and went to his grave saying that "Teenage Kicks" was his favorite song of all time.
Fun Fact: Peel liked the song so much that he wanted the lyrics "Teenage kicks, hard to beat" inscribed on his tombstone--and after his death in 2004 the lyrics were eventually added to his tombstone in 2008. As a great band once said, it's only rock and roll but I like it...
Nothing fancy about this one--it's three power chords on the guitar, pounding drums, Feargal Sharkey's quavering vocals, and all for one of the best songs ever written about teen angst. The first time I heard it I knew it was a song I was going to love forever, and hundreds of listens later have proved that I was right. It literally ranks up there with the Ramones' "Blitzkrieg Bop," The Clash's "White Riot," and the New York Dolls' "Personality Crisis" in the annals of all time great punk songs. From the exploding guitars to the yearning in Sharkey's voice, it's a tune for the ages.
Lyric Sheet: "Are teenage dreams so hard to beat/Every time she walks down the street/Another girl in the neighborhood/Wish she was mine, she looks so good..."
This idea that Donald Trump, who couldn't count his testicles and come up with the right number (it's two, Donald), is somehow going to broker peace on the Korean peninsula may rank in the history of misguided ideas second only to the now long disproved idea that the earth is flat.
That a man who has no knowledge of foreign policy or the history of the two Koreas and no desire to have any is going to succeed where men and women who have spent careers studying them have failed is beyond ludicrous. It's akin to tossing car keys to a kindergartner and pronouncing he'll win the Indianapolis 500.
The spectrum of possibilities for Trump concerning North Korea run from getting played by Kim Jong Un (probably already happening) and further eroding the world's trust in the U.S. to be a force for stabilization to an utterly disastrous war that will kill millions.
Which leads us all to hoping against hope that Trump merely embarrasses us.
Guess what? It's not a 70's tune this week--hell, this one was actually released this decade! As I never listen to the radio or any of the other spots where the cool kids hear their new tunes, I found out about this one on an episode of Roadies. For a short-lived show (ten episodes), it sure gave me plenty of good tunes to spend the rest of my life listening to....
We have an FNJ first this week--Tyler Lyle is the only artist I've featured thus far who does not have a Wikipedia entry devoted to his career (which is kind of odd as I believe even my cranky neighbor across the street has a Wikipedia entry). The best I could come up with was Lyle's official site, and about all it said was that he's from Georgia, has released four albums, and had some shitty family vacations when he was a kid. Alrighty then...
Needless to say, if there's no Wikipedia bio, there's also no Wikipedia entry for his 2011 debut album, The Golden Age and the Silver Girl (though it's an interesting enough title), on which was released this week's tune, "California," so sadly there's no Billboard chart info--though his official web site says his debut was a "top five seller" and that it was listed as one of the ten best albums of 2012 on NPR's prestigious World Cafe.
"California" is a sparse gem--it features (near as I can tell) only an acoustic guitar and a mandolin (though it may be a banjo), with an emaycee fave, handclaps, providing the rhythm section. Ostensibly, it's a break up song, but Lyle's tune mixes its sorrow with a healthy dose of we're both to blame, and an even healthier dose of optimism: while break ups suck, they also leave open a lot of doors with fresh opportunities on their other side. And the greener grass here just happens to be California, where our protagonist is headed to start his new life. Lyle's vocals convey both the resignation of a love lost and the determination to make a fresh start in America's very own land of hope and dreams--let's face it, with the exception of New York (because of its ties to the arts), there is no state that inspires the heart and mind quite like California. And "California" is an enlivened ride on that hope train.
Lyric Sheet: "There ain't no gates around heaven/No gates round hell/Just the sunset in the distance, and the dark on its tail..."
With the (unsurprising) news this past week that the GDP is down, the stock market is down for the year, and Americans' optimism about the economy is sinking, and with the boost to the economy from the tax cuts for rich folks about as existent as Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Man on the Moon, there may be a silver lining or two to electing Donald Trump: a majority of Americans might finally be waking up to the fact that electing rich people to give even more money to rich people really doesn't work out so well financially for the rest of us.
Because if we want to turn the tables and reap our deserved rewards for the fruits of our labor, we're going to need a lot more than just a handful of folks punching back.
A couple of years back I scored an Eric Clapton compilation CD at a thrift store for a buck--and as I usually do when I get a previously unheard CD, I began playing it in my car. For whatever odd ass reason, despite the fact that I'd heard the song, oh, thousands of times before, it suddenly dawned on me that "Layla" was beyond a classic and that it was literally the voice of the God of Music. Just a slight exaggeration, but I did play "Layla" non-stop for the next two weeks on my way to and from work.
Derek and the Dominos was formed in 1970, when after touring with Delaney and Bonnie for the summer, Eric Clapton found he rather enjoyed just being a regular old guitar player instead of being Eric Clapton, of "CLAPTON IS GOD!" fame. Joining forces with fellow Delaney and Bonnie alums Bobby Whitlock, Carl Radle, and Jim Gordon, the new band spent time playing together in and around London, were basically George Harrison's backing band for his All Things Must Pass LP, were joined for a time by FNJ featured artist Dave Mason, and eventually landed in Miami where they recorded their one and only album. Fueled by cocaine and heroin (not usually a good combination...), the band was joined by Duane Allman, of, obviously, Allman Brothers fame (and another featured FNJ band), and released their album to little or no fanfare (at least partly because Clapton refused to have his name plastered all over the project). Within a year the band had dissolved (again, cocaine and heroin, not a good combination), and as is sometimes the case, fate was not kind to the band members. Clapton spent the next three years shooting heroin into his veins before being rescued by Pete Townshend and would eventually lose his four year old son in a tragic accident, Carl Radle would die of a kidney infection in 1980 brought on by drug and alcohol abuse, and saddest of all, Jim Gordon, an undiagnosed schizophrenic, would eventually murder his mother during a psychotic episode and was put in a mental institution in 1984 where he remains today. I wish I had some uplifting close to the band's bio, but alas drug addiction, death, and schizophrenia are tough to put in a happy light.
As noted above, "Layla" was released on Layla and Other Assorted Love Songsin 1970 to little critical or commercial success, but was re-released as a single after being placed on a Clapton retrospective, The History of Eric Clapton, in 1972 and rose to #10 (with a bullet!) on the Billboard Hot 100. History would be very kind to the band--"Layla" is a classic rock staple and ended up at #27 on Rolling Stone's list of the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time. Meanwhile, Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs is considered by many to be the crowning achievement of Clapton's career (and that's saying something) and was ranked #117 on Rolling Stone's "500 Greatest Albums of All Time."
For the three people who may not be familiar with the song's background, "Layla" was written about Patti Boyd, the wife of Clapton's good friend George Harrison (yes, that George Harrison), with whom Clapton was hopelessly in love. For those wondering...Harrison wasn't all that bothered by Clapton's desire for his wife, being quite the philanderer back in the day and they would eventually divorce. Clapton married Boyd in 1979 but they, too, would end up divorced by 1988...because, in no small part, Clapton was quite the philanderer back in the day, as well.
The song opens with perhaps the most widely known burst of guitar in the history of pop music (and for which Clapton gives all credit to Duane Allman), which literally sounds like lightning bolts shooting out of a guitar amp, moves into Clapton's plea (and it's truly a plea) for Layla/Boyd to give her man/Harrison the heave ho for him all the while Allman and Clapton are frenetically playing a real life version of Guitar Hero, before the release comes about three and half minutes in and the song moves into a comforting piano while Clapton and Allman provide some subtle backing guitar for the last three and a half minutes. If ever there was a song that was a metaphor for sex, "Layla" would be it: the guitars and vocals being the excitement of the foreplay and the passion of the actually making of love, with the piano closeout being the canoodling after the climax. Forty four years of following pop music and I'm finally ready to admit that just maybe sex plays a small part in rock and roll....
Fun Fact: Jim Gordon stole the piano part from then girlfriend Rita Coolidge, and she has never been credited for her work on the song. Amazingly, Coolidge never sued, though it likely would have meant millions in royalties for her.
Lyric Sheet: "Layla/You've got me on my knees, Layla/I'm begging, darling please, Layla/Darling won't you ease my worried mind..."
In light of Michelle Wolf's tour de force at this year's White House Correspondents Dinner, NBC journalistic has been Andrea Mitchell called for Wolf to apologize to lying sack of shit Sarah Huckabee Sanders, among others, for her comedy routine.
I agree--I think Wolf should apologize...right after Mitchell, NBC's Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent since 1994, apologizes to all of America for having her head so far up her ass that she completely missed the fact that the Bush Administration was lying through its teeth when it justified the need to go to war with Iraq in 2003 by falsely claiming not only that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, but also that it had ties to Al-Qaeda.
Or better yet, if Mitchell's husband, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, would also apologize, this time to America's poor and middle class, for his horrendous stewardship of our economy, which directly led to the Great Recession, and for the economic hardships it caused and from which many Americans will never recover.
Wolf told a few jokes that had some all too painful truths to them. Mitchell and her husband's obliviousness had horrific real world consequences.
Frankly, the sense of entitlement that Mitchell, and people like her in the Beltway, have is beyond mind boggling. Frankly, she can take her phony outrage and place it right beside the head that she still has so firmly situated up her ass.
This man got his because he changed the world for the better
A handful of republican bozos in the House of Representatives have nominated Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to end the Korean War (...pause to let the laughter die down...). This has caused some hand wringing on the left, but it really shouldn't: the Nobel committee didn't give a Peace Prize to Hitler, or Stalin, or Mao, or Pol Pot, or Idi Amin...and they're not giving one to Donald Trump, either.
The Peace Prize committee gives its award to people and organizations that inspire and uplift us, and to those who give us hope. Never in its history has it given one to a hateful asshole.
And they are not about to break that tradition for a hateful asshole like Donald Trump.
The average American gets paid just enough so he doesn't quit his job, and works just hard enough so he doesn't get fired.
"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross." Source unknown
Uncle emaycee Wants You For the Coming Class War! Enlist today....
Capitalism: Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you can exploit his labor, become filthy rich, and keep the poor bastard living paycheck to paycheck for the rest of his life.
