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Beers of the World #4 – Moosehead Lager – Canada
I’ve never been a fan of Lagers. I find most of them to be a bit…skunky for lack of a better word. I don’t like Heineken, because of that reason and I didn’t like Moosehead either. It was bitter and skunky and simply not great. I enjoy ales, porters, stouts, trapiste ales, but lagers I’m not into. That isn’t Moosehead’s fault and I’m sure that they have a loyal following, but don’t count me as one of them. I enjoyed a four cheese pizza with bruschetta tomatoes and arugula on top. Basically, a margherita pizza. If a beer can’t go well with pizza then it really has no place in my home.
They didn’t seem to pair well and perhaps it’s my fault, but again I’ve had beers like Chimay with pizza and it was delightful. Pizza is a universal pairing with beer and it’s rare that a beer doesn’t go with it. What I will give them credit for is a great website. Beer companies in general seem to take the time & effort necessary to craft great, engaging sites that bring fans of their beer into the fold. Moosehead, while not my favorite by a long shot, has a fascinating and storied history and is work a look if you’re interested in history of beers at all.
Here’s a little taste:
Moosehead has a long and storied history. Since 1867 we’ve survived two fires, expanded our line of beers, began distributing worldwide, and even discovered a little known part of the human psyche called the Outer-self. But, believe it or not, we had very humble beginnings.
I’m willing to take the blame on this one as my predilection towards lager distaste clouds my judgement. Not sure when I’ll be tasting my next beer, but I’m certain I will enjoy it more than Moosehead.
Beers of the World #3 Genesee Cream Ale
When I received this gift and started on this arduous journey to write about beer that I consume the last place I thought of was Rochester, New York. It isn’t exactly a Mecca of world beer consumption and yet if you look at the label of Genesee Cream Ale you will notice the numerous world beer awards that they’ve taken home. The label itself touts its achievement as being around since 1878 and being an “Award winning classic with the flavor of a fine ale and the smoothness of a premium lager.” Before last evening I had never heard of this beer. Classic? Perhaps it’s bigger on the East Coast, but I certainly don’t remember ever hearing about it when I was back there.
What I will say for them is they have one of the better websites I’ve seen from a beer company and the history of their beer is fascinating. As for the taste, I was expecting something a little more frothy, if you will. Something along the lines of a cream stout or even with a hint of vanilla. It had very little of the maltiness (Maltese?) flavor that it claims, but I was not disappointed. The girlfriend and I sat down to finish watching Downton Abbey and enjoyed Salmon a la Checca with brussel sprouts (I boiled them for 2 minutes then baked them with olive oil & a little Tapatio sauce on top) and quinoa. It was the only beer of the ten that I thought would be able to go with this meal and I was right. It was a perfect fit.
I struggle with the designation of beer that most people have. Beer is just as good for pairing as wine. There are certain beers (Bud Light, Natty Ice, Old Milwaukee) that are great for packing it in on a road trip or camping trip or just shotgunning with your boys. Wine is the same. You don’t see many French restaurants serving two buck Chuck or boxed wine. There are cheap alternatives to everything and beer is no different. The reason Guinness is so perfect with Fish and Chips is because the malt vinegar and oil compliment the stout flavor of the beer. It’s the pairing that makes it so great, but goes unrealized because of many societal designations about the crudeness of beer. It doesn’t have to be that way.
Beer, wine and spirits all compliment different dishes in different ways. That’s part of the reason I’ve been doing this. I want to not only speak to the quality of the beer, but also pair it fairly so that I can get a true feel for what makes a beer truly original and great. Genesee Cream Ale, while not exactly worldly, is still of the world and a fine beer. There’s a reason a beer from Rochester, New York was included in the world beer box…quality. I won’t try another World beer until perhaps Sunday or Monday, until then it’s Fat Tire and whiskey for me. Happy New Year, kids!
Top-5 Albums of 2011 – Matt De Mello
Like I said a few days ago, I will no longer be writing about music on this site, but I will link to my writings on other sites.
Beers of the World #2 – Hillas – Greece
Continuing the Beers of the World series that I started yesterday we come to Hillas. I have never partaken of a Greek beer, even though I tended bar at a Greek restaurant at the Grove in L.A. for about a year. I was summarily dismissed because the Vietnamese wife of the Greek owner thought I was ”too flashy”. I have never been anything near flashy, in fact I detest flashy. I am the antithesis of flashy, but I’m not bitter. So Hillas, “like killas” as my girlfriend so astutely put it, was a fantastic choice to go with creamy polenta and falafel. It was malty and smooth without a bitter aftertaste. It had a creamy texture and sweetness that I thought did it well. From the Hillas Beer website, here is some history:
Beer, called “zythus” by the Greeks, was the first alcoholic beverage known to civilization over 6,000 years ago. It was a drink of the rich and wealthy as well as ordinary folks. The drink was even used as an offering to the gods and placed in tombs in the Egyptian civilization where beer had its birth. Throughout history beer has been associated with family life, friendship, romance and celebration. Although the taste of beer has changed over the last few thousand years, the enjoyment has remained constant.
Open a bottle of Hillas Lager Beer and share the kinship with past Gods, kings, queens and other ordinary people. Brewed in Rodopi, Greece where, according to tradition, the first Greek beer was produced in Ancient Times. This light pale beer is dry and well balanced, and makes for a smooth drinking with a malty finish. Hillas Beer, imported by Fotis & Son Imports has captured the tradition of brewing a truly great beer. Fotis & Son Imports proudly boast a philosophy of “quality without compromise.”
Unlike Mexicali, Hillas isn’t the kind of beer to drink ad nauseum. It’s akin to a Belgium beer in which the richness of the flavor makes it delicious with a meal or at a business luncheon, but certainly not a shotgunning beer. I highly recommend this beer to any beer connoisseur or gentleman beer drinker. I am the former, but certainly not the latter. Regardless, opa to Greek beer!
Beers of the World #1 – Mexicali Beer
So Christmas has come and gone and what a glorious day it was. I received gifts I will cherish for a lifetime and one of those gifts happens to be Beers of the World. It’s a ten pack that World Market sells (you’ll forgive me if I don’t know the price, being improper to look such things up for gifts) and my family thought I would enjoy it. My family knows me very well. I figured since they went to the trouble of buying it, I should review each beer that I drink here. I’ll be turning this site into something less about music and more about my other interests such as: Movies, books, beer, restaurant reviews and booze. Rarely will I speak of music, sports or politics here any longer.
Back to Mexicali. I rate Mexican beers on a pretty fair scale. Sol being at the bottom and Negro Modelo Especial being at the top. Corona is nearest the bottom while Pacifico, Dos Equis and Bohemia fall somewhere in between. I have never heard of Mexicali but here is a little history directly from their website:
In the beginning of the second decade, Mr. Miguel Gonzalez and Mr. Heracio Ochoa united as partners to form the first industrial brewery in Baja California. On September 15, 1923, the Mexicali Brewery opened its doors and quickly became one of the biggest and solid industrial facilities in the Northwest region of the Republic. As time went on, Mr. Ochoa departed from the brewery and Mr. Gonzalez become sole owner of the corporation, until his death, thirty years later.
The key to success for any brewery is the brewmaster. Mr. Miguel Gonzalez had the good fortune to have met Mr. Adolfo Bindher, a German brewery chemist and brewmaster that would produce a consistent, quality beer to whom fame would extend for decades. When Mr. Bindher died, his son took the responsibility of brewmaster to insure the same high standards of brewing were kept, as well as the secret of an inherited formula. After fifty years of satisfying the thirst and demand of the local population and tourists from all over the world, the brewery closed its doors. Today, the same formula and packaging is brought back to the industry for the pleasure and enjoyment of beer enthusiasts throughout the world. And Remember, these Brews are “Complete Beers – No Lime Required”!
I used a lime in my beer as I do in most Mexican beers. I found it to be refreshing, but not spectacular. I drank it while I ate steamed clams in a Tequila, garlic, butter sauce which I felt complimented it quite well. I’d rate it slightly below average, better than Corona, but not as good as a Pacifico. It’s the kind of beer you could enjoy while watching the ballgame or just hanging with friends, but I wouldn’t recommend it for gourmet consumption as the website suggests. Also, despite what they claim, it was just fine with a lime and if you’re as big a fan of citrus as I am then I recommend you try it with one.
The Ones Mad To Live
As Occupy Wall Street (OWS) rages on, we marvel at the young people standing up for what they believe in. This kind of dedication hasn’t been seen since the late ‘60’s when our parents fought against the imperialistic forces that sought to ruin the middle class, the lower class and those on the fringes of societal norms. And so, on they rage against Wall Street, the symbol of everything that has crippled this country for decades.
In all this anger, resentment and desperation, inspiration comes easy. It happened in Egypt, Syria, Libya and now we’re fighting as well. On “60 Minutes” last week they told the story of a young musician in Egypt who dared to write a song denouncing Hosni Mubarak, the former Egyptian leader. Later, when Mubarak was deposed, he wrote a song against the Army that now occupies Egypt and he was severely beaten, but on he sang. We did that once. That happened in this country at one time.
Where did our protest songs go? Tom Morello was down at OWS singing ‘60’s protests songs. His former band Rage Against the Machine protested things like Tibet, Korean dictatorship, Cuba, but rarely, if ever, about our own government. It’s been ten years since 9/11 and it was such an event of capitalization by so many artists, but when we invaded other countries not a word was sung in deterrence. Now, as we still occupy countries we don’t belong in, we sit in a worldwide recession, and no one in Washington can agree on the color of paint they want in their offices, let alone what direction the country should go, we wonder where our protest songs are? Who do we look to?
Who is our Bob Dylan? When is our Woodstock? When do we get out there and sing about how we have an unemployment rate of 9.1% and politics come before helping people? This is our time. These are the days when we should be standing up, with our lungs full of air and screaming songs of anger with pride. Has a 24 hour news cycle weakened our resolve? We have become complacent in contentment. We’ve become happy in our little homes, with our High-Def television, listening to our i-Pods, surfing the internet, playing our Playstation, doing whatever it is people do with i-Pads do, etc.
We write on our Facebook walls how brave those people at OWS are as we gnaw down another energy bar before we go on our jogs to stay fit so we can get laid and live forever. It isn’t about living for the right reasons anymore; it’s about staying alive to suck more space without contributing anything. Jack London once said:
I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.
And yet here we are doing everything we can to not mess up the order of things. We spew good government bullshit to the masses and watch our specialized stations geared towards our thoughts and the message gets distorted by all. MSNBC loves OWS, FOX hates it and CNN just kind of sits there and tells you it’s happening. They take songs like Tom Petty’s “Won’t Back Down” and make them their own, but there’s no original content. No one wants to upset people in a divided country. If we get out and say something people will hate us, like they did with the Dixie Chicks (forgive the reference).
Perhaps, the reason was that people railed against Vietnam and then put Nixon in office and it all got worse. It got crazy for a long time. Then we buried ourselves in mountains of cocaine and mentally dropped out. Even the ‘80’s had their causes, though, the protests songs came at a less frequent pace, but they came. U2 tried to distance “Sunday Bloody Sunday” as a protest song and that was the first time I remember an artist denouncing the protest. It wasn’t “cool” anymore to protest. It was just a story, but we, as the band, are not taking a side either way. We’re just reporting it.
Fuck that! I want my artists to take sides. If it isn’t my side then so be it. Hank Williams Jr. wrote a horrific protest song last week that goes against everything I stand for and really is based in utter stupidity, but he stands for something (mainly that a black president is the equivalent to a self-hating murderous fascist that murdered 6 million Jews, though he was one by heritage and that an over tanned cry baby is the same as the Prime Minister of Israel, but still…). Do we really have to turn to country music to find our protests songs? I can tell you how that’s going to work out…not well.
There has to be someone out there that will get on their soapbox and speak to the horrors that our own government perpetrates. There has to be someone that can write like Dylan did against war, against hatred, against class divisiveness that is intent on keeping people in abject poverty and the planet on a downward spiral. The technology is there, the know how is there, the ingenuity to create a better planet, a vibrant society where we don’t go out of our way to colonize countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya is there. The knowledge to put these people back to work building bridges like our grandfathers did.
Woody Guthrie sang in the Depression, Dylan sang during Vietnam. Who will we turn to now that we need a voice to break through to speak to the disenfranchised? Who will we look to as our voice of reason that reminds us to keep fighting like Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young did with “Ohio”? The NYPD is pepper spraying peaceful protesters who want the change we were promised. Where is that change? Who is singing about the change we deserve? Who is getting out there and reminding the “establishment” that we’re here and we’re not going to get fucked with anymore. Do we have to get brow beaten like they did at the ’68 Democratic Convention in Chicago? Do we have to go through a Watergate again?
What will it take until people are moved enough to leave their happy homes, their comfort zones and say “enough is enough”. To quote the movie Network when will we say, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not gonna take it anymore.”? Remember what Kerouac said in his masterpiece, “On the Road”:
The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes “Awww!”
Be the ones that are desirous to live. Be the ones that get out there and fight the fight and look back on a better world someday and realize that you were a part of the reason that we are in a better place. It isn’t all about money, it’s about conscience. It’s about singing to the skies to the apathetic and letting them know that they can spray us, beat us, martyr us, but we’re not going away. This is our time, make it count.
27 & It’s A Tragic Number
What is it about that wicked age of 27 that takes Rock Stars from us? While most people today are reveling in stories of Fat Elvis falling off the toilet to his demise (posterior firmly positioned in the air), I am choosing to mourn the loss of Robert Johnson, Delta Blues Legend (that last part is capitalized for emphasis it is not his actual Christian name). That’s not because I think I’m better than those people, though I most assuredly am. No, it is because he started it…all of it. The death at 27 began with Robert Johnson & it isn’t insignificant that many consider him the reason Rock N’ Roll exists today.
It was today in 1938 that Johnson died at the ripe old age of 27 from strychnine poisoning, some other substance or the devil himself collecting a debt. The 27 club added a new member this year in the person of Amy Winehouse. Why 27? Don’t get me wrong I understand the circumstances, drugs mainly, almost exclusively. The prevailing question of most people isn’t why they died period, but why at 27? It’s a magical age for musician death. It seems 27 has taken away so many musicians during their prime, but not before their time.
That notion of someone dying before their time is such a misnomer & inaccurate. People die at their exact time, it’s what they do with the time they had before that that is recognized or not. Kurt Cobain was in the prime of his career, was about to release MTV Unplugged: Nirvana Live in New York an album that I consider their best work. Instead, he went on a heroin binge & blew his brains out with a shot gun. What kind of musician would he have been after that? The same can be said for Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin? Death in your prime is immortalizing.
The Doors had put out numerous albums that are blatant masturbatory messes. Oftentimes, with Morrison’s self indulgent bullshit ramblings sucking up a repetitive back beat & rhythm section. Dying at 27, though, puts him at the precipice of discussions of Rock n’ Roll legends. I like some Doors songs & I think there was undeniable talent in that group, but my prevailing opinion of them is a bunch of guys on acid that saw the music they were playing & jammed too long in the studio. Some people have a better constitution for drugs. Keith Richards being the most prevalent example.
Janis Joplin could very well be the most dynamic female singer of all time. She had a rawness, a desperation & a beauty to her voice that I don’t think has been matched since. It’s what seemed to lead her down that path. It’s the trappings of fame. When I lived in LA I saw it all the time. It’s part of the reason one can’t stay in LA too long, it gets to you. You feel it within that town. And while very few of these musician’s deaths actually happened in LA there is a prevailing sadness that resonates throughout the town when somebody of any stock dies young.
Truth be told, 27 is just an arbitrary number that very talented people have died at. Drugs kill people, shotguns kill people, strychnine kills people. There isn’t a magic elixir or talent quotient that takes people at 27 because they’re greatness has been realized. Kurt Cobain defined my teenage years. The pain in his voice & lyrics, I felt. When he died it stung me like I’d lost my best friend. The problem is he killed himself. He chose to die at 27. Johnson, Hendrix, Morrison, Winehouse & Joplin did not (though, in a roundabout way their vices were not exactly leading to hopes of a long life). He put himself into the club. It was like shooting heroin wasn’t killing him fast enough so he had to finish the job himself. He was nothing if not efficient.
I say then, as much as I loved Kurt, we take him out of the club. To me, it would seem much more appropriate that people can only be invited into the club by Death himself. Doing Death’s job for him, while helpful I’m sure is still rather presumptuous. Death’s role in this whole affair of the 27 Club is simply to come at the opportune time & snatch life away from that person. Now, if the murder scenario of Kurt Cobain is to be believed then maybe an admittance to the Club is in order, but certainly death at one’s own hands leads to the scrutiny that is sure to follow. And through all of this we return to Robert Johnson.
Robert Johnson never sold his soul to the Devil, because there is no such thing. It was just an expression for playing secular music that White America took & ran with to create this fairytale about Johnson. The problem is that it isn’t necessary. Listening to the crude recordings he made is a pleasure without the myth. The tonality in his voice, the lyrics, the extravagant guitar work, those are the things that matter. He revolutionized music by simply recording it. Son House was around & Muddy Waters (No relation to John Waters) was coming up around that time as a boy, but Robert Johnson was better than all of them. Why do you think we’re still talking about him as the greatest 100 years after his birth & 73 years after his death? Shit, I hope people are still calling me adequate when I kick.
“Matty was amazingly, deliciously adequate. What an absolute middle of the road average guy.”
It’s not that I’m not shooting for more than that, I’m just saying talking about me in a remotely positive way when I leave this mortal coil is enough to make my day slightly better. I remember reading somewhere or maybe someone told me that Eddie Vedder wanted to die at 27, thought he would be dead & remembered as an icon. It didn’t happen & now he’s making Ukelele records somewhere in Yakima. If Cobain would’ve turned out like that I would definitely not be calling him a legend. If Hendrix ended up becoming like Santana, making records with Michelle Branch & Rob fucking Thomas then there’s no way we’d be still calling him one of the greatest guitarists of all time.
How often do you hear someone talk about Santana like he’s the guy who absolutely killed it at Woodstock, tripping on Mescaline & Acid thinking his guitar was a snake? Rarely…they talk about him as the guy that plays guitar on that song, “Maria, Maria” a song about a movie that turned tanned white people into Lower East Side Puerto Ricans. It’s undeniable 27 immortalizes people, but it isn’t a magic trick, it’s a tragic act of misfortune & an inability to cope with stardom. These people in the 27 Club are no different than Tupac, Biggie, Buddy Holly or Richie Valens who all died before 27 in no less tragic circumstances. Hell I didn’t even mention Brian Jones from the Stones.
This Club is an atavistic wet dream for that neanderthalic need within all of us to explain everything. Why does the sky exist? Why do I exist? Where do I go when I die? Why do great artists die at 27? I’m gonna break this down to you so you’ll understand. There are about 6 plus billion people in the world give or take a billion. A few million of those are 27, just because someone is an immensely talented musician does not mean they won’t succumb at a certain age. Thieves, waiters, bankers, realtors, bartenders, kay-bee store associates all die at 27. It’s just an age. Remember what awesome artists these people were not the circumstances of their deaths, it’s unbecoming.
All that being said here’s some of the recordings of people that died at 27…hypocrite (pronounced HYPO-CRITE in England). Follow the De Mello Theory on Twitter & Facebook.
Jimi Hendrix
The Doors
Janis Joplin
Nirvana
Where Did You Sleep Last Night
Robert Johnson
Ruminations of Concerts Past
Last night while out with a delightful young thing in the midst of some heavy conversation on life, liberty, the plight of the black man in modern America & the pursuit of justice (of course this was a first date) I was caught off guard by a very simple question, “What are your top five concerts ever?” This was my High Fidelity moment & I blew it. I totally muffed the question. I’m a concert aficionado. I try to get to at least a small show a week, but after five or six drops of the craythur I couldn’t process my thoughts quick enough to give an accurate response. I was left flailing, grasping for air like a fat man running up a flight of stairs. So now, if you will be so inclined to indulge me, I now request a mulligan. Here is the top five all-time-desert-island-can’t-live-without-best concerts I’ve ever been to, now with more reflection!
Number FIVE:
Face to Face at the Whiskey-a-go-go Sunday September 26, 1996.
I had just turned 20 & was driving around in this van that looked so inconspicuous that it was entirely too conspicuous. My buddy Oscar & I were bored, it was Sunday & being the good young ex-Catholic School graduates that we were we went looking for trouble in Hollywood, where there is a lot of trouble to be had for a price. We drove down the strip & passed a line outside the Whiskey & the marquee shone bright with the name FACE TO FACE on it. Face to Face was a punk band when punk was making its comeback. We found a parking spot, approached the ticket counter & realized they were sold out. We were already spaced out of our minds, me stoned, Oscar tripping on acid & mescaline I believe. Then a wonderful young Asian female punker approached us with two tickets asking if we were interested. We inquired as to the price & twenty dollars for both was the rate. we haggled her down to fifteen which was the price for one ticket regularly & in we got.
They played for a good solid while & it was amazing. We thrashed around like the junkies we were & after the show was over we bribed the security guard to get backstage & we partied with the band until the wee hours knocking back the bottle of Jack they passed our way, though we weren’t legally of drinking age yet (we were rebels). We went home that night, slightly less sober than when we arrived & drenched in party. It was the first show I’d been to at the Whiskey & I haven’t been back since. How could I go back? It was my Orson Welles moment. My first concert & I felt I peeked. I needed more & more I would get.
Number FOUR:
Wilco at the Wiltern Monday June 22, 2009
I was building sets for movies, reality shows, television, music videos & hating every moment of it. I’m certainly not averse to manual labor, but the monotony of painting or taping or carrying equipment for the skilled laborers was stifling. The only thing that made it worth doing was the paycheck & the people I worked with. They were all fucked up in their own sort of way & we made a beautifully dysfunctional family. We partied together as much as we worked together & we had some amazing shindigs, so amazing that the haze they’re covered in, in my mind, has all but relegated them to iconic status. I do remember, however, going with my buddy Flip to see Wilco, a band that I loved so much that I had Lead Singer & writer of words Jeff Tweedy’s lyrics tattooed on my left forearm. His song Sunken Treasure always struck a chord with me.
We smoked some hash in the midst of the crowd, passed it back & forth as stoners are apt to do & reveled in the beauty of the magic that was bestowed upon us that night. Side Note: Flip actually fronted me the ticket & I was supposed to pay him back sixty bucks for it, which I still haven’t done. So, Flip, if you’re reading this (you’re not) then I live in San Francisco, come find me & I’ll pay you back, buddy. My bad. At one point, during one of the three encores I screamed out “Sunken Treasure” & he yelled back “I don’t play that anymore. Why should I play it now?” To which I retorted, “The chorus is tattooed on my arm.” So he told me to come to the stage so he could see it. I showed it to him & he said, “This one time.” & he went into an acoustic version of “Sunken Treasure” right there in front of me. It was this ethereal moment of Holy shit this is amazing! That Almost Famous moment when you realize, “It’s all happening!” After that Wilco could do no wrong in my eyes.
Number THREE:
Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Oct. 1-3 2010
The first day I went with my friend Sarah & a few of her friends. We saw Steve Earle, Jackie Greene, Trombone Shorty & a few others & it was great. Easily the best festival of the year. Then Sunday, October 3 I went with my sister & that’s where it went from best festival of the year to one of the best I’ve ever seen. We started with a little Yonder String Mountain People, some Robert Earl Keen & then we jumped into some Randy Newman, where a gopher, who obviously couldn’t help himself, poked his head out just as Newman broke into “Short People” which must’ve drawn the ire of that gopher who grabbed grass to stuff into his hole (not a euphemism) to either consume or drown out the noise. We hustled over to catch a few songs from Elvis Costello & then we ran back to our makeshift camp site to wait for the Avett Brothers to play.
I’ve been an Avett Brothers fan ever since I heard Emotionalism or was it Mignonette? I don’t remember, but really I’m just arrogantly showing off. Look at me I’ve been an Avett Brothers fan for a long time, what the fuck do you know? Yeah, that’s how awesome I am. My sister, Boodge, leaned over to me as they were about to go on & said, “I hope they play Colorshow. More than any other song that’s the one I want to hear.” The crowd swelled & pushed forward, but not aggressively so & when they finally started they led off with “Colorshow” which got us going, screaming the lyrics in the misty Golden Gate Park & by the end we were breathless having experienced something with the masses that almost defies description.
Number TWO:
Bruce Springsteen Great Western Forum Saturday, August 24, 2002
I’ve gone into the depths of my troubled relationship with my father ad nauseam. We were hot & cold for much of the 24 years we spent together, but we always had music to tie us together in harmonious opulence. This was the first concert I went to after he died. I went with my then girlfriend, who, as I would later find out, just wasn’t big into good music. I suppose it wasn’t her fault she just wasn’t born with good taste. It happens. That night Bruce got on stage & he played all of his classics & everyone sang along to the songs that marked stages of their own development. He sang songs from his latest album The Rising & those affected by 9/11 in the crowd cheered with wild abandon as others applauded with sincere gratitude for those that risked their lives as the first anniversary was fast approaching.
It was something else that he did, though, that brought me to tears. He told a story about his father & himself. His father didn’t seem to understand his generation, as my father didn’t understand mine. I felt like the spotlight was turned directly towards me & he was speaking inertly towards my soul. I didn’t sob, but the tears came & when he broke into “The River” I couldn’t even sing along with him. It had been a year & a half since my father died, since I found him in the driveway & those wounds were still fresh. The rest of the show went on like brilliant happenstance & when I left I was physically, emotionally & psychologically drained. It took every bit of energy he had to get on that stage & leave it all out there & I felt like I’d been the one out there singing to the masses.
Number ONE:
Coachella Friday April 19, 2009
This was the first time I made it to the music festival & I paid $300 bucks for two tickets so my buddy Jose & I could see the likes of the Black Keys, Franz Ferdinand, Steve Aoki, Morrissey, Leaonard Cohen, M. Ward & Paul McCartney. Jose got messed up pretty bad on MDMA & I was, like always, sticking to my weed. We wandered like Indians in the wilderness from tent to tent, show to show, singing, marveling, imbibing. The show took on a life of its own & we just went with the flow. Steve Aoki played & since I’d never seen him I was keen to check him out. He did not disappoint. Leonard Cohen wasn’t at his beat, clearly past his prime, but Franz Ferdinand & the Black Keys were lights out fantastic.
Then Morrissey came on stage played a few Smiths’ songs, a few of his own classics & new ones & had a weird troupe of sailor suited clad men dancing about on stage which was slightly disconcerting.In the middle of one song though he left the stage at the “stifling smell of rotting flesh”. A well renowned vegetarian & animal rights activist Morrissey is known for his histrionics & as they were cooking fifteen pound turkey legs adjacent to the stage he may have needed this opportunity to take a stand against the heart clogging purveyors of death. Nevertheless, he came back & finished his set & all was right with the world.
After Morrissey, though, was when the fun really started. Paul McCartney, he of Beatles fame & possibly deceased, if you believe the cover of Abbey Road, came on stage & destroyed it. Playing for three straight hours he played everything you wanted to hear that day. Every Beatles song & even John Lennon’s iconic “Imagine”. Jose & I, both completely smashed, delightedly sang “Hey Jude” at the top of our lungs along with the throngs of people who had come strictly to see the former Beatle in all his geriatric glory. It was a moment that could not be relived as 100,000 people sang the songs that were the background music to our lives.
So there it is. There’s my top five. I hope this clears up any confusion I may have caused last night & clarifies my position as a musical genius/guru/sycophant. Thank you & good night!
Sifting Through the Muck & Mire of the Digital Age
It has become obvious to this writer that music simply isn’t what it used to be. In the digital age, as this period of evolution is referred to, we are inundated with music from every angle. We have almost become desensitized to all the music pushed on us. Remember Myspace & how it was supposed to revolutionize music so that we could discover new & upcoming talents? It wasn’t that at all. It became a conglomeration of shit. Shitty band after shitty band begging you to listen to their inanity.
I am a lover of music & being quite nearly 35 I don’t feel like my time has passed me by nor do I feel the need to tell the kids to turn the music down. What has happened is that finding new great music has become harder. With all the shit that has permeated through the cracks of the internet we must now sift through we have now become like those idealistic gold diggers who came to California in search of their fortune only to find thousands of others here before them sifting through the muck & the mire for one gold nugget.
Finding those nuggets has become almost an exercise in futility. For every great artist there are a thousand awful ones. I’m not saying it was better when the record companies dictated that we listen to Kajagoogoo, but with so many divergent tastes & blogs telling us what to listen to what’s the difference? When you do find that one artist you adore you cling to them making sure they’re not like pyrite by finding every bit of music they’ve ever done. Sifting through their high school years to see if they were fans of Hall & Oates or if they were more inclined to listen to Nirvana.
It is this process that has driven me away periodically over the past three years that I started writing on this blog & thedemellotheory.wordpress.com before that. It created an apathetic mess in my mind of people telling me how I must listen to this band, because they’ll change my life. The only artists that have ever changed my life are Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Bruce Springsteen, Nirvana & the Avett Brothers.
My father got me into Dylan on a whim. I used to watch him sit & listen to Dylan tapes on our family stereo & I mocked him on numerous occasions. I would say things like, “He can’t sing. He’s a relic of a different era.” Until one day he forced me to listen to Highway 61 Revisited. I resisted at first, but he said, “Listen to the words, not the voice. Listen to the sentiment.” I listened to the whole album trying hard to hate it…I couldn’t. It was brilliant. I had to have more. I now have nearly everything he’s ever put out, including the Bootlegs with the Band & demos. It literally changed the way I thought about music.
The Beatles were different. I think everyone listens to the Beatles from birth & it’s sort of the background music of our lives. When you delve deeper into their catalog, when they started experimenting you realize that at that moment they were doing things that no one had ever done before. They were the first super group without even realizing it. Even Ringo, who was just in the right place at the right time had immense talent. Their songs resonate with people of all ages, but what they did better than most was have a marketing team that brought their sound & look to the masses. They begot Oasis which formed my 90′s affair with British Mod rock.
Bruce Springsteen was another incarnation of my father’s insistence. He had that raw bar band sound that I so desperately needed in my early 20′s. I was fully ingrained in the Southern California Punk Rock scene & at times I felt like I was putting on airs with my declarations of anarchy & how the government was keeping us in abject poverty. Us, of course, being those in Generation X seeing everything as a conspiracy. I had such rage. Rage that I wasn’t doing anything with my life. Rage that I didn’t drive a nice car, wasn’t with the prom queen, that I couldn’t hold a job for longer than 3 months.
Today that might be called depression, then it was happenstance. I went with my dad once to a record store that I loved, because he couldn’t find an album he’d searched for forever. That album turned out to be Greetings From Asbury Park, Springsteen’s first album. We listened to it on the way home which was a short 5 minute ride, but instead of stopping we drove & drove & drove. We listened to that album in it’s entirety & at no point in the 24 years that we shared together did I ever feel closer. Of course afterwards, he hit me up for $5 for the gas he expended, but I gladly paid it for the experience. After that the thought of living a musical life without Bruce being a part of it seemed insane.
Nirvana defined by teenage years. That angst that came out of Kurt Cobain’s lyrics & the driving sound of the Fender from the first power chord of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” drew me in like the Millennium Falcon to the Death Star via tractor beam. It was the gateway drug that led me to punk rock where I discovered a love for three chord masterpieces. It was something that made me feel less awkward when awkwardness was all I felt. When Kurt’s body was found it was like I lost a friend. The only time I cried more violently was when my own father died seven years later.
The Avett Brothers are a different kind of band. They are sort of punk rock bluegrass. They are nothing if not prolific having released ten studio albums & three live albums since the year 2000. Theirs is a style that brought my indie knowledge to the forefront & helped me build a bridge to Generation Y that has provided me with a fantastic relationship with my youngest sister. She being obsessed with Harry Potter & other nerdy things that I find it hard to relate to being that my nerdisms got me bruised & battered in my formative years. We drew closer due to experiences like San Francisco’s Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival that we watched in the mist of Golden Gate Park. We danced like banshees to their music & I felt uninhibited to the thoughts of others as we belted out the lyrics with reckless abandon. It was a musical time machine, if you will.
These groups, these people have formed my oh so refined musical tastes that I now struggle to sate. I write this to myself as much as to those reading this saying don’t give up. Sift through the muck & mire & every once in awhile you will find that golden nugget. Just make sure that while you are sifting you’re keenly aware of the pyrite that lives among us.
Bob Dylan – Desolation Row
Bruce Springsteen -Lost in the Flood
Nirvana – Come As You Are (Unplugged)
Avett Brothers -Salina
The Beatles – One After 909
