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September 29, 2007

watching the label spinning on my turntable

i miss rock and roll. fist pumping - camaro driving - mullet inducing rock. i miss ham fisted drumbeats and big riffs played by skinny men dressed in skinnier clothing posessing unironic moustaches bad tatoos and real beards. as much as the elitist in me has enjoyed the boon of the indie scene...the music - it may be beautiful and complex and tormented...and i may love it for all of those things but it doesn't rock. even the bands that think they rock don't really rock. (i'm talking to you jack white). probably because they are too self-conscious to lay aside their latent irony (and their effete pubey beards) that hangs over their collective heads like the sword of democles.

last nite i went down to rhythm & brews to see drivin' n cryin' live and in concert. and wow. i had fun! kevin kinney and the boys rocked my face off. seriously. i now have no face. and maybe you've never heard of drivin' n cryin' if so - shame on you. they had a handful of hits back in the 90-somethings that still get some radio play and you can often hear one of their sweet sweet tunes when they pop up on juke boxes at bars where it's still lawful to smoke inside and people play pool and have a rabid allegiance to dale earhardt jr. and the southeastern football conference.

sadly a fight broke out during straight to hell and the cops showed up causing me to duck out the back door before the encore. partly because i didn't want to get tased by a police officer in bicycle shorts and also...ever since the christopher carl weathers birthday extravaganza i know they're just looking for an excuse to lock me away. forever. here come the fuzz indeed. of course that didn't stop me from screaming out the words to all 75 verses and choruses of straight to hell and it didn't wipe the stupid beatiffic grin off of my face as i stumbled back to the impala...still marveling at the seamless way they morphed fly me courageous into kashmire on into smoke on the water and back again. southern rock will rise again my friends.


p.s. christmas is just around the corner - and people always tell me that i'm one of those difficult individuals that is impossible to shop for. i happen to think that none of the people that say such things love me enough to actually take the time to figure it out. but let's not quibble. the 80gig ipod has just dropped to $250 and i'm far too selfless to ever purchase such a thing for myself so...there's that.

Posted by young_christopher at 9:42 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

September 18, 2007

in austin and everything after...

when i was a kid i was never allowed to watch much television. my estranged father bought us a little black & white television one christmas - probably because he knew mom wouldn't like it - and after much cajoling and pleading we finally convinced mom to let us watch the occasional saturday morning cartoon or the dukes of hazard or something. this lasted for awhile until mom fell under the spell of one bill gothard (those chalk talks can be pretty convincing) and then one night she caught me watching wonder woman without permission and the tv went away. along with mom's long pants. i don't think mom ever really understood that i was in love linda carter/wonder woman - and that she would be the first of many unattainable women i would love hopelessly over the years. *sigh*

ironically when we moved to hollywood, fl in 1979 mom married a man who owned his own television repair business. and there was great rejoicing - until my brother and i realized that he too was not a big fan of the boob-tube (his words) because everything that came out of its rich mahogony recesses was subversive big goverment brainwashing voodoo. at the time we lived in an apartment directly above his television shop. and it was torture. until we figured out there was cable down there and we snuck down late at night and discovered the wonders of forbidden fruit. and suddenly we found that we couldn't live without all the glory that it held and thus began an epic war with the parents to let us watch.

public television was a logical starting point. and it was a battle we won fairly easily because my brother and i were in an oil painting class at the time. and it was pretty hard to find fault with bob ross or the crew from this old house for that matter. sadly bob ross' mildly maniacal musings were not enough to inspire any of joy of painting in my young heart and the painting lessons quickly went by the wayside. but a love for public television remained. i don't know how old i was when i first discovered austin city limits but i was instantly hooked. it came on every saturday nite at 9 and it pretty quickly became something that i never wanted to miss. which is odd - because back in those days the vast majority of the performers were traditional country types and i didn't really have any affinity for country music - (aside from a minor obsession as a toddler with glen campbell's rhinestone cowboy.) my mom would invariably roll her eyes and say "how can you listen to that stuff?"

i don't know. i think the reason i became hooked was because i loved music. and there was just something magical about that show. the smoky haze that hovered over the crowd - the fake plastic trees - the intimate setting. it all seemed so impossibly romantic to me. and i always wanted to be a part of that. so when i first started compiling a list of things to doe before i die - going to austin city limits was pretty high up on that list.

and last thursday nite i boarded a plane hurtling through space toward texas to fulfill my dream. wondering if i'd packed the right outfits and how would i be able to choose between wilco and my morning jacket and could this ever come close to meeting my expectations. and i was pleasantly surprised when it actually did. over the course of three days i got to see so many bands i've been dying to see. i finally got retribution for the arcade fire fiasco and wilco finally played red eyed and blue live and in concert. and in the process i discovered the genius of andrew bird and the wacked out crazy energy of ghostland observatory...and wow. i missed bjork but bloc party spoon lcd soundsystem and blonde redhead and the national (especially the national) rocked so hard i never had any time to feel any regret.

okay i might regret my unfortunate tan lines slightly - but these are the sacrifices that one must make for the sake of the 3 day outdoor rock 'n roll music festival where it's so hot speakers and rv's spontaneously combust. and in the midst of a rockin' weekend we still managed to find time for romantic candlelit dinners at shady grove and one too many cocktails at the totally bad ass peacock at 2 a.m. - not quite puking at ihop at 4 a.m....floating barton springs...playing a tambourine with my ass...even that girl from colorado lived up to the hype. the rest of my life is totally going to suck by comparison.

Posted by young_christopher at 7:15 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

September 7, 2007

reflecting off of your cd

today i made a trip to corporate to show my face around the building - pick up some supplies - and generally catch up on any and all office related gossip i might have been missing out on in the past several months since my last visit. of course i ducked out early because i wanted to hit up the old shopping center on lebanon pike that consumed so much of my petty cash during my misspent youth in nashville. i wandered through marshall's - finding nothing that i could not live without (for the first time in my life i'm coming to the conclusion that i might have just the right amount of clothing. maybe even a little bit too much. especially in the light jacket category) i then decided to head down to the other end of the strip to the used cd store that yielded some decent finds in years past (see an original {not re-released} edition of uncle tupelo's still feel gone and richard buckner's since which directly inspired me to write the song $5.99 because that's exactly how much i spent on that cd.

i browsed the racks pretty carefully but save for richard thompson's street warrior - the one where he allegedly goes electric again with...electric results...i didn't find anything i couldn't live without. i started to pick up the cd to make the purchase but then i turned it over and saw the price tag $9.99 and i placed it immediately back in the rack. with a fair amount of disgust. where do these used cd stores get off? when did it suddenly become socially acceptable to charge more for a recently released cd and/or a classic album by a well regarded artist. it really is outrageous. i distinctly remember complaining about this issue to heidi at one time and she rolled her eyes at me because i was being obtuse. i don't think she actually said that i was being obtuse - nor did i see any eye rolling since the conversation took place over the phone....but it totally happened.

when the used cd market first became a thing the going rate for a used cd was $7.98 and this was top dollar for any and all cd's in good used condition. prices were not scaled based upon popularity of artists and/or bad assery of artwork. pop - rock - heavy metal - alternative - country it was all $7 .98. for albums that were in slightly rougher condition there would be a $4.95 bin and then of course somewhere in the store a $1 bin could be found. i prefer to think of these as the golden days. but sadly those days have long since passed us by. independant and mega record stores alike are closing left and right due to a maelstrom of really bad overpriced pop music the dawning of something ominously known as the digital age which really isn't even that ominous sounding. even if you say it in an ominous voice it's still something of a letdown.

obviously times change - inflation happens and prices increase. it's a part of the glorious capitalism that we as u.s. americans adore. but there are always exceptions to the rule. and the price of compact discs is an excellent example. it would make perfect sense that if the cost of music had increased over the past 10 years the value of that music - even used would increase as well. but the truth is the price of cd's has dropped significantly over the past decade. wal-mart target and amazon (not to mention {ominous voice} apple) have flooded the market with brand new music ranging from $9.99 - $14.99. the average price at a tower or other mega record store was generally $14.99 - $18.99. and sure they would have sales but for the most part you'd have to be nuts to pay those prices especially with the advent of downloadable music whereby any album could be had for roughly $9.99

this being the case i simply cannot wrap my brain around the idea that the gradual decline in new album prices somehow makes used products that much more valuable. i should qualify here and say that the folks running this particular cd store are not necessarily the best or the brightest. on several occasions i came across used cd's and/or dvd's that were more expensive used than they were brand new at the target less than 200 yards away. the same target that they were undoubtedly stolen from in the first place. but by and large it seems the more used places i walk into the more i see this disturbing trend of ever escalating prices. and as much as i love music. and especially as much as i love collecting musical artifacts with artwork and liner notes and whatnot i will simply not abide this kind of outrageousness. even if it means never purchasing another used cd ever again. because that thing i said earlier about too many clothes...i can never have too many cds.

oh - and to all those poor souls who camped out for days on end to buy a $600 i-phone. suckers!!!

Posted by young_christopher at 7:28 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack