An Intentional Wreck—My 2009 (Musically)

OK! I’m gonna try to keep this short! Ha! Where have you heard that before!?!

I don’t wanna sell you short. I know how you have nothing better to do, and need me and my lists and travel accounts to keep you moving. Even more than that, you need my musical lists, and I gotta do 2 of ‘em! One for the year and one for the decade! Fuck, are we gettin’ old…

And in the interest of finishing all these obligatory lists before we get too much older and possibly succumb to our mortality, I’m gonna hop into my account of this year in review. The old rules apply—I went w/ the most striking or seemingly significant songs, which are not always the same as the best. I find that approach more illuminating, not to mention interesting, and besides, many of the results are the same. The format is “Song title—Artist—Album.” Let’s have at it…




Digeridoo—Aphex Twin—Classics:

Though this song came out only a little more than 10 years ago, it’s already ancient. The world of electronic dance music seems to work that way. Still, this song is also creative and catchy—and is easily more memorable than most of its contemporaries. Good music—the kind that can wake you up a little and make you look at what’s happening around you—I mean—the light and the colors and the sound—not the news… That kind of music ages well.



Dummy Discards a Heart—Deerhoof—Apple O’:

I’ve been aware of Deerhoof for a while now, tho’ up until recently, I hadn’t actually heard them. I’ve been missing out. Deerhoof are one of those bands that you might never “figure out,” because they go off in so many musical directions. Their music is so idiosyncratic that it feels like the flotsam & jetsam of some alternate reality ‘tho it’s difficult to imagine what that reality might be. What kind of place projects something as strange, squalling and sweet, as this? Free jazz caroms off of saccharine melodies. Thudding metal guitars and vintage synths are beat back by vocals that rev from cute sing-songing to ungodly shrieking. And somehow, usually, they make it work. It’s worth noting that some of this music is reminiscent of Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band, and that points toward a danger that Deerhoof may have to navigate around: insularity. Beefheart lost his connection to most of his audience, becoming arrogant and maybe paranoid.

Deerhoof are not Beefheart, which may be both good and bad. They certainly haven’t been granted the stature that 60s and 70s rock critics were happy to offer Beefheart as the First Great Avant-Mainstream Artist of the Rock Era. But so far, over several albums, they have refined their vision, continued to explore, and it seems—you can never be sure—haven’t fallen into sexual love w/ their navels. (Anyone know or remember that old Gomer Pyle gag?) Let’s hope they can continue to operate this way, because it’s fun, smart music.

Now if someone could just talk to Fiery Furnaces…



Hound Dog—Big Mama Thornton—Hound Dog: The Peacock Recordings:

OK. So, here’s one you don’t have to work real hard at. It offers not only guitars and an American blues structure, but singing as well. And what singing! Are you sittin’ on yr. ass yet?

Man, she belts this song out. That growl…Still, the standard assessment states that awesome ‘tho that growl may be, Big Mama really only had this 1 power. Otherwise, she was an OK singer and intensely charismatic, but was musically limited. I don’t care. Her performance here is something to be experienced—a storm in the form of a girl, as Courtney Love once said.



Drop Out – Times New Viking-Rip It off:

Wow, y’know I feel really stupid about saying all that shit about rock being mostly dead, aside from the Blood Brothers. (Who have now disbanded, sadly.) Because, well, here’s Times New Viking.

Remember when rock n’ roll was cool? Remember when it was both exciting & excited? When it was alive? When it was dumb? Most of all: Do you remember when rock n’ roll was fun???

I do. But I’d forgotten. Whenever music like this comes along to deliver a swift kick in the ass, thereby reminding me, I am grateful.

I don’t have anything descriptive to say about this song that won’t just seem superlative. So… my advice… just listen to it.



Heaven Tonight –Hole – Celebrity Skin:

I’ve been writing about this song elsewhere recently, which is only appropriate. Why? you ask, because I’m approaching a my fourth decade on this earth, a Great Time of Decline & Mediocrity. What music better captures that sorta energy?

No The song’s heightened visibility is appropriate because Courtney Love’s music is defined by the inappropriate amount of notice it draws. Despite appearances, she is incredibly talented—in at least one respect: The amount of attention she seizes from the world around her is vastly disproportionate to her achievements as a musician or actress. That’s not a unique skill, of course, but Courtney has developed it to an expert level.

And yet, y’gotta admit… there’s an ocean of product out there, at least as banal and ludicrous as this shit, but somehow, Courtney manages to make her stuff stand out. Whether it’s that amphetamine gleam in her bleary eye, or just the spunky way she brays out “eh-hehh, eh-hehh” from within a sea of studio-birthed back-up singers that support her in “Heaven Tonight,” Courtney can whip up musical hamburger helper like no one else—except, maybe, for Billy Corgan…



Bike – Pink Floyd-The Piper at the Gates of Dawn:

Even Courtney Love couldn’t come up w/ gibberish like the stuff Syd Barrett spouted. I mean, to be fair, Courtney’s gobbledygook is cribbed straight from Rock Lyrics 101, whilst Syd’s was deciphered from some alien transmission. She was peddlin’ poppycock, and he was movin’ moonshine. Or something.

That said. What you get here is an engaging overcranked flow of images that are at once bizarre and hilarious and that never fail to do the same thing Courtney’s tryin’ to do: to sing a song about 2 kids fallin’ in love.

And that’s just the lyrics! Here, you also get a vicious rock beat, a maniacal harpsichord, and a pure “noise” coda that makes The Beatles’ “Revolution Number 9” feel even more tedious than it already felt. I finally picked up this record a couple years ago. I’d heard most of it and knew it was great, but somehow, circumstance dictated that I never got my hands on it. The whole thing is brilliant, but this song came on random play one night while I was hanging out, and I was carried away by it.



Miniature Tune—Ata Ekbar aka Sote—Persian Electronic Music:

For me, this song functions the same way. I don’t care about the lyrics—which is fortunate, because there aren’t any. When the song starts, I feel like I’m down there inside it—pure sound. It draws me out of my personal murk, & I wait & listen for what will happen next. This song comes from a collection of music by 2 different artists. Both transpose traditional melodies as part of their music—which is generally weird/avant garde. (A term that may make some of you hate it outright, but as the man said, listen w/o prejudice.) And some of the stuff is freakin’ noisy, if you like that sorta thing—and I sure do. This guy’s younger, and I like his stuff the best, but I say run out & get it. You’ll probably have to go to Amazon or somewhere like that, if you do, but really, trust me, it’s worth it.



Time to Blow (featuring Terry Hall) – Leila – Blood, Looms & Blooms:

Leila is an Iranian-born electronic musician, who explores techno, ambient and various other styles with real creative flare. Here, she’s conjuring up pop music from a parallel universe—something that reminds you of the things you hear on the radio, but through little musical twists and turns sounds completely different.

The carnivalesque vaguely sinister atmosphere of this song is heavy, while the lyrics are a clever acting out of paranoias of both romantic and generalized. I haven’t heard anything this unique and energetic in a long time.



Magic Carpet Ride – Pizzicato 5 – Made in USA:

Just goes to show you, there’s more than 1 way to be an alien. I’m not talking about nationality, ‘tho 1 might speculate as to how a non-Western point-of-view affects the conceptualization of music of an ostensibly Western style. I am talking about music, and the wholly unpredictable ways that some people find to make it.

Aside from the fact that both are inclined to bend Western pop music to their will, Leila and Pizzicato 5 couldn’t be farther apart. The method is different, and I suspect the goals are as well. Pizzicato 5 seem hell bent on making the most Western music possible, trying to go so far as to hitch up their covered wagon and head West of the West.

Without shame, they work every cliché of middle-of-the-road pop into the music on the hits collection Made in USA. The lyrics are insipid, but unexpectedly troubling. Do the sentiments: “Life is a lie, and we all have to die,” belong in a happy-crappy song like this? Not sure, but they caught me off guard when this song came on random play on my ipod 1 day. And I guess that’s what makes this music interesting to me: it comes off as banal in the most mainstream way—in fact, it would appear that is what it’s going for—and yet it’s wrong. Off. Weird.

The music of Pizzicato 5 is legitimately alien in a way the Residents will never be despite all their aspirations. Their music is also terrible. But it seems to say something about popular music as a whole—about the give and take of ideas and cultures, artists and listeners. And that—along w/ my innate sado-masochism—is why this song is on this list.



Mutilated Lips – Ween – The Mollusk:

Yet another approach to pop music that is both familiar and alien. Ween are able to take their weirdest ideas, which really can be bizarre and squeeze them through a sorta shoehorn of perfectly accurate radio pop/rock forms—effortlessly, it seems. Like other bands that shuffle from metal to Nashville country in the space of a few songs, Ween are usually concerned w/ satire—w/ exploring the ridiculous aspects of varying genres as a means of revealing something about them or about other non-musical phenomena. But unlike the Residents, say, (who are really taking a beating here,) Ween’s reproductions are virtually perfect—w/ each original song sounding like a classic of its genre that you somehow forgot. They respect the forms they manipulate, while admitting their flaws. In fact, they seem to be as fascinated by the flaws as they are by the purer facets, which to me, is a sign of real love. They’re supposed to be big Prince fans, and I definitely think there’s a purple shadow falling over this one, ‘tho it’s also under the larger influence of progressive rock, as is the entire album, The Mollusk, from which it’s drawn. It’s an incredible record, well worth picking up.



Smokestack Lightning – Howlin’ Wolf – His Best (Chess 50th Anniversary Collection):

A big spooky blues—creepy & insistent—it’s almost hard to believe that “Smokestack Lightning” comes from a guy who foregrounded his sense of humor in songs like “Tail Dragger” & “300 Pounds of Joy.” This one’s dark, maniacal, and repetitive. Very simple, but very powerful, which is often the case w/ real art that’s made by someone who’s bold enough and big enough—in this case, both physically and spiritually—to pull it off. I spent some time working on the main riff on my guitar this year. It’s a lot of fun to play.



Are ‘Friends’ Electric? – Gary Numan & The Tubeway Army – Replicas Redux:

I’ve written before about my views on Gary Numan—of how, 80s synth-trappings aside, I think he offers a vision of longing and personal isolation that is pervasive, if not universal. I don’t know about you, but I’m lonely, even though I’m not wholly alone. I’m stuck in here, in my head. There are a lotta commercials going on outside, but no actual programs, and I’m not sure if anyone in them feels the things that I feel. I see aliens out there, looking in at me. If they’re aware of me at all.

I am also not special. Nor are you—in one sense. Depending on how you look at things, there are a lotta you, which means you’re superfluous. And that’s depressing. On the other hand, you’re all by yourself. It’s a paradox, I guess. Anyway, Gary soldiers through all that—never afraid to look like an ass. (Which is good, because he often does.) This was a great, early one, vicious and sad, down to the quotation marks around “Friends.”



Put a Curse on You – Quasimoto – The Unseen :

I grew up on rock n’ roll, but hip-hop was at least as important to the process whereby I scuttled through adolescence to my teen years & then to points beyond. I learned a lot from this music—socially, esthetically and in other ways that I can’t always see. So it’s pained me considerably to see it become so distant and abstract to me, where once it was vital.

The relevant change here isn’t in hip-hop by itself, of course, but also in my own attitudes toward it. I followed it w/ real excitement through so many shifts. I’ve been able to adapt to a lot—and yet sometimes now, it seems that I’m on the verge of losing something that meant virtually everything to me. Of course, I’ll never lose the old records—though… see below—but that’s old music, & hip-hop, at its best and worst, used to be about a sorta eternal renewal—new styles, new personalities, dramatic new stylistic visions. It moved so fast, it was easy to get lost, and that disorientation wasn’t always a good thing—only 99.999% of the time.

Maybe that’s why I find it so hard to understand or relate to where the music is at now. What’s more: how did a kinda music that was so focused on innovation end up foundering in a paucity of ideas? How did something so fulla spirit become so soulless—and I’m not just talking about, nigger, bitch, gun, etc. I’m talking about cold commercial cynicism and a dead sound—sorta like unoccupied airwaves, but more irritating. There was a time when rappers wore their underground status like a badge, now… who’s got the hit? Do you really care?

Anyway, this is my long-winded way of saying that I’m glad I finally picked up this record. It’s a little challenging—maybe lacks the immediate grabbing of a lotta great hip-hop—but it’s imaginative and it’s clever and it feels alive in an unforced way. I’ll settle for that.



Welcome to the Terrordome – Public Enemy – Fear of a Black Planet:

We now bring you Part 2 of the Decline & Fall of Hip-Hop… a.k.a., Maybe It’s My Fault…

Ha! Stupid white liberal! I tell myself that maybe I just don’t get it now. Maybe my vision is just clouded by age and cynicism and syphilis. I don’t want to lose hip-hop. Let me look to the clearest point of all—the True North point of hip-hop. From here you can navigate through any quandary, esthetic… or even moral. Don’t laugh! The point off in the distance, sending off little flashes of light in the big Western Snowstorm is Public Enemy, and they have more than a subtle grasp of how to fight immorality, the System, the Man, the Power.

God, I loved Public Enemy. I bum rushed the show in ’88, at the Saginaw Civic Center. It was a bone crushing standing room only crowd, mostly black. There were 4 acts. Public Enemy was the 2nd to hit the stage, which meant that their set was truncated at around 30 minutes. Professor Griff and the Security of the First World hit the stage before Chuck D or Flava Flav. The S1Ws marched around, African American guys in camouflage and berets—and each toting a presumably fake Uzi. They spun out flawlessly synchronized para-military moves. It was stunning. A guy next to me could see I was into it and asked just who the hell these guys were, and where were the rappers. I told him. He looked at me like I was speaking Greek. I wasn’t, but I was white.

I’d induced my party to arrive hours before they opened the doors, so we could get in front. So we were pressed up against the barricades, all through the show. I was eyeball-to-eyeball w/ Chuck a few times. That intensity you see in his gaze in all those pictures is real. I recited every single lyric along w/ him. He reached out to slap my hand at one point, but I couldn’t reach far enough. Weep not for me! I received a consolation prize. After PE’s set, Flava Flav came walking down a narrow little corridor that the security guys maintained between the stage and the crowd. His boom box was barking out bass heavy drum breaks. He slapped a few hands as he passed, including mine. I’m sure I’ll never forget that—even when I see him on bad reality TV shows.

Not long after that, Public Enemy broke. Gone was the time when I needed to explain the S1Ws to anyone who might care. Just like that, PE became the best artists, musically and morally, in hip-hop or R&B. The breadth of their topical vision was matched only by the genius of their musical productions.

Unfortunately, there was at least one serious flaw within the group, and problematically, it was a moral one. Public Enemy had set themselves up as symbols of virtue, of something right that had to rise up. They believed in true justice—that the bigotries of the world would be reined in—and kids like me, who needed to feel that these things could be true, also believed. Now, here was Professor Griff telling The Washington Post that Jews were accountable for “the majority of the wickedness that goes on across the globe.” In the same interview, he made the stunning observation that Jews’ prominence in the jewelry industry was self-evident, as, well the word” jewelry” does contain the word “Jew,” doesn’t it?

It’s up to each of us to decide whether we should laugh at Prof. Griff or get pissed off. Me? I didn’t explicitly defend him back then, but I did maintain that Public Enemy should not be criticized if they didn’t kick him out of the band. Do you fault the Detroit Tigers for playing Ty Cobb? But then, the Tigers aren’t hawkin’ morality, are they? Only peanuts.

You shouldn’t nod at bigotry. I almost don’t think that needs to be said. Still, we nod at hypocrisy, so I guess maybe it does. Bigotry can hide itself very easily—in an offhand joke, or even in the music of the most righteous group in the history of hip-hop. (I’m not even gonna into the homophobia of PE’s “The G That Killed Me.”) Worse, bigotry can be communicated from musical artists to the idealistic kids—and oldsters—who love their music. It can be smuggled in w/ all the good ideas a group represents, finding its way into the things that a passionate fan believes.

See, I really believed. I would say I wasn’t trying to cover up anything that I knew or thought, but I don’t think that’s true now. At the time, I did. But something vague has always squirmed around somewhere in my head. I used to think it was doubts that racists had planted—not just in me and not only concerning PE, but in others, and concerning black nationalism as a whole. To an extent, I still believe that’s true. There is a barfworthy playbook that stupid people w/ an underdeveloped conscience use to beat down the hope of others and to act out their own fears—to keep ‘em in line. Many of these people consider themselves to be liberal.

But Professor Griff was an asshole and in hesitating to condemn what Griff had said, Chuck D revealed flaws in his leadership, a quality which, up until that point had appeared almost superhuman. It seems profoundly silly now to’ve believed that a prominent rapper could ever be Malcolm X, but in PE, for the first time in hip-hop, the energy was there, and that possibility seemed very real. Maybe we were expecting a lot of the guy, esp. in the face of a media stampede, but like Barack Obama, it’s hard to believe that Chuck didn’t see what his opponents would do the second he gave them an opening.

When the group finally dismissed Professor Griff, some people applauded the move, some people derided it. I was too busy holding my defensive crouch, ready to leap out and tear the throat outta the 1st person who questioned Public Enemy in front of me. I actually argued, defended, etc. everything without giving it so much as 1 thought. In retrospect, I know I didn’t want to think. To do so might’ve threatened the meaning that PE held in my own small world.

On the heels of all these troubles came this song—a dark successor to the stunning and galvanizing “Fight the Power.” Where that song’s attack had been deft, direct and vicious, “Terrordome” was muddled and menacing. It’s a song about confusion, and, delivered by immensely talented artists who were in the grip of a suffocating paranoia, it is a song about fear and hatred. Unfortunately, the hatred here is not just the object of the song. It’s not just something to be singled out and challenged; it’s something to indulge in.

I won’t bother w/ some of this song’s other troubling lyrics, ‘tho there was a time when I also would’ve defended bits like, “I don’t smile in the line of fire, I go wildin’…” as well, and am no more proud of it. I’m gonna stick to the issue. The song is peppered with a few lines that are at least arguably anti-Semitic. (“Arguably,” I say, only because Chuck & followers insist there is no anti-Semitism here, that he is misunderstood.) Digs like “told the rab to get off the rag” are stupid and unnecessary, but mostly trivial. They are also well below the very real dignity of PE to that date. More problematic was a reference to an apology that Chuck had offered—through clenched teeth—to Jews worldwide. The lyrics run “Crucifixion ain’t no fiction/ So-called chosen, frozen/ Apology made to whoever it pleases/ Still they got me like Jesus…” Some felt that these words raised the shadow of blood libel—that blob of medieval repugnance that allowed for the systematic persecution of European Jews for centuries, who were blamed for Jesus’s execution. And those who felt that way were right.

Apologies aside, we had gone nowhere, and the whole endeavor began to feel false. The next Public Enemy album, Apocalypse 91: The Empire Strikes Black was the last one I bought. I can’t say that a conscious feeling of falseness convinced me to move on. I think it’s more relevant that the music began to feel less assured and less alive. Still, the first 3 albums profoundly changed the way I look at music, and I have continued to listen to them ever since.

Then just lately, I was walking home from a guitar lesson, and this song started playing on my headphones, and somehow, I couldn’t brush aside the negative parts of what I was hearing. I just couldn’t enjoy the song, despite all of its power. It became very clear to me that there is no way to rationalize bigotry. PE convinced me of that. And if they themselves have been called into question for me, I still believe in the example that they once set.

Louis Farrakhan once said that Hitler was “a great man, but evil.” I can’t go that far, but I will say that I loved Public Enemy, and I loved this song. I don’t exactly hate either but after my recent epiphany—and its consequences, which include a discovery of some of the homophobic crap Chuck D. has felt the need to ooze recently—I don’t think I’ll ever look at either the same. Still, it is a great song—not evil, but vicious, intense and alive, in the sense of a twitching nerve.



A Means to an End (Live) – Joy Division – Closer (Expanded Edition):

I don’t think that the hatred Professor Griff felt could’ve been any more intense than the anger Ian Curtis seemed to live with. This anger lacked an easy target, it moved from self to other, always seeming to be very close to violence. Here you get that energy as much as you do in any other Joy Division song. This live performance—which has been released as part of the expanded version of the band’s last album, often leaves you wanting to duck and cover as vitriol and noise explode out of a thick atmosphere of tension.

It’s funny to me that a band that’s popularly associated w/ plodding depression can be so energetic. They sound very much like a rock band here, manic and very sharp. The drums, especially snap. The guitars are jagged lines—harsher and more irresistible than a great deal of rock acts’ ax work. And this song is where it all hits hardest for me. Powerful, very volatile stuff.



Heroes (Aphex Twin Mix) – Phillip Glass – 26 Mixes for Cash:

Over the years, many musical artists have approached electronic music artist Richard James about w/ requests for a re-mix of one of their songs. 26 Mixes for Cash is a collection of these re-mixes that twists and turns through a lotta different territory—from techno to dance pop to, well… this song. Usually, James works under the moniker Aphex Twin, but he’s recorded original music, as well as mixed music by other artists, under a dizzying array of names. The typically cynical humor of the compilation’s title doesn’t suggest how much invention and what an understanding of different musical forms—something which I believe comes from a genuine love of music—you’ll find herein.

The pedigree of this song is complicated: In 1996, Phillip Glass composed an orchestral version of Bowie's 1977 album Heroes including, of course, the title track. Richard James was brought in to “re-mix” the song. He incorporated the original Bowie vocals into the instrumental score. He claims never to’ve heard the song, but found it to be “a good tune.”

I’m not sure how seriously to take that, but who cares? Isn’t this just surreal, messed up, brilliant? That you could render this insane parody of rock n roll hubris from the musical equivalents of a soup can and a used hunk of chewing gum says a lot about human ingenuity—not to mention about how to make some damned interesting music.



Okwukwe Na Nchekwube—Celestine Ukwu & His Philosopher National—Nigeria Special: Modern Highlife, Afro-Sounds & Nigerian Blues:

Generally, I don’t pursue “world music.” When I was younger, I thought it was something that yuppies or 2nd generation hippies who listen to too much NPR seek out. Though I’m not the only person to hold such a stigma, it was dumb and limited me. I’m trying to move past my knee jerk meat n’ potatoes mindset, and one happy product of that effort is this song, which comes from a compilation of 70s Nigerian rock music.

I know nothing about Nigerian music, but 2 things made me think I should look into it—an All Music Guide feature and an enthusiastic description of it offered by my guitar teacher. Of course, it’s always cool to hear songs performed in a way that is outside the standard mindset. This music is beautiful, funky, psychedelic and boils indigenous style w/, of course, American styles. (An approach that’s reminiscent of Miniature Tune” above, though the songs couldn’t be anymore different.) This particular song is just so haunting, so beautiful and so infectious that I couldn’t let it go and found myself listening to it frequently.



Feel So Good – Spacemen 3 – The Perfect Prescription:

Yep. No surprises here. Still… One day this summer, I’d walked into the Loop. I was listening to the Perfect Prescription. It was close to evening rush hour, warm, and the sky had been cloudy all day. It hadn’t rained at all, but as I was walking west up Madison, just before I hit Wabash, the clouds suddenly broke, and this song started playing. The light was gold-toned, and fat drops of rain started falling in it. Despite the rush hour malaise, some people were smiling at the change.

It didn’t last, but it was almost as real as a commercial! Ha ha… just kidding… Nothing’s as real as a commercial. Anyway, it really was good moment that seemed almost spiritual in its clarity. I’ve remembered it ever since.



The Biggest Lie – Elliott Smith – Elliott Smith:

Elliott Smith was viewed as a singer-songwriter. The demands of that genre require an intense foregrounding of self, as one artist is largely responsible for the creative direction of the music. He/she writes the songs—as the job description sez—and he/she often records or performs without accompaniment.

One consequence of this situation is that the singer-songwriter’s audience often comes to him/her out of intense identification. If you like, say, Joni Mitchell’s early music, it’s probably because you recognize pieces of your life in her music. There may be times when she communicates something that you feel better than you can do so yourself. To some extent, of course, that’s true of any genre, but nowhere is it more pronounced than in the music of the singer-songwriter.

As far as Elliott Smith goes, I guess it’s clear what side I come down on. Starting w/ “Needle in the Hay” in 2005, I’ve included one of his songs on each of my annual playlists, except for 2007’s. My choices weren’t part of an intentional program. The music has just continued to speak to me—so much so that I haven’t even gotten past the his self-titled album when it’s come to choosing songs on my lists.

So I say that the listener powerfully identifies w/ the singer-songwriter. What does it say about me that I’ve been focused on Elliott Smith for the last 5 years? That I’m depressed? Ida know, but I don’t think he’s a bad influence. Misery loves company, and sometimes, sometimes, company is what gets you through.

Not everyone shares my appreciation for Elliott Smith. Many’s the joke about his wheezy little voice that I’ve had to sit through. I’m pretty sure my guitar teacher, who’s a classic rock stalwart, kinda hates his guts for his exotic tunings alone. And when I told a friend how hilarious I thought the punch line to this song was—as a wicked deflation of love song hyperbole—she told me that she thought it was “mean.”

Lester Bangs wrote, “I thought it was Iggy Stooge, you thought it was Joni Mitchell or whoever else seemed to speak for your own private, entirely circumscribed situation’s many pains and few ecstsasies.” No accounting for taste, I guess.




Well, that’s it for this year. I’m not gonna say much more for now. I’ve gotta go off and finish my decade in review list—soon so I can someday know real peace. I hope you’ll forgive me if I made this, uh, short… Relatively… The Decade in Review List is on Its Way!


Forceman out…