1. U2
Reasons why U2 is better than every other band of the 1980's:
a) The songs. There are about 20-30 U2 songs that make Dolberry very happy whenever he hears them. (I'll list them under "best songs".)
b) There was never a better video than U2's "Sunday Bloody Sunday" where they were at Red Rocks outside Denver. A storm rolls in. You can see the band's breath as Bono waves his white flag and screams his frustration "I'm so sick of it!" He was sick of the violence in Northern Ireland and 1983 Dolberry was sick of doing homework, taking out the trash, or having girls not lining up to date him. Nevertheless, we were kindred spirits against cruel outside forces. (Video added to sidebar.)
c) No other band of the 80's played a concert in St. Louis MO in 1987 on the same night as the 6th game of the World Series (Twins - Cardinals) and sucked up to the crowd by having their lead singer come out emblazoned in a Cardinals jacket and hat (which he threw to the crowd).
d) More than any other "star" I know, U2's Bono has leveraged his fame to do something other than general self-indulgence. Personally, Dolberry thinks he's done almost entirely good things which is an added bonus.
e) The Edge's guitar sound.
f) U2's Super Bowl appearance which paid tribute to the 9/11 victims while reaffirming that the US and people of good faith everywhere will not bow down to evil.
g) My Dad once said, while demanding that early U2 be turned off, that "this is awful" & "those guys will never amount to anything". It is, to my knowledge, the only time my dad was ever wrong about anything. (For the record, my mom was only wrong once as well ... thinking potato soup was edible.)
h) I heard Bono say once, "Quit asking God to bless what you're doing. Instead, find out what He's doing and do that. It's already blessed."
i) I like how U2 rebounded from a period in which they thought songs about this citrus fruit were good ideas. I like the fact that they tried that whole weird mid-90's Pop Mart thing ... even if I never got it. (Others 80s bands rebounded, but not to the same level as U2.)
j) U2 is from Ireland. Dolberry ancesters are from Ireland.
k) I like the fact that U2's absence from Live Earth was advocated by the antiGores as evidence that the concept of global warming is somehow flawed. (They're recording a new album in Africa at present.)
l) I like the fact that when U2 was starting out they claimed "I can't change the world, but I can change the world in me."
m) I like that U2 is so into America (our strengths, as well as our failings)
n) I like the fact that there's no better song to play on your headset while walking on the beach on a grey cloudy day than "The Unforgettable Fire". Seriously, I think that's one of the best experiences one can have on Earth.
o) I like how U2 usually opens "Where the Streets Have No Name" w/ a snippet from one of the Psalms (e.g.: Ps 116-12-13).
p) Bono's 80's hair, while widely mocked, is still a target that to which Dolberry aspires.
q) I like the fact that the Edge so admired Stuart Adamson and paid a touching tribute to him upon his death.
r) I like the fact that Bono's been married to his wife for 25 years.
s) I liked the U2 appearance on the Simpsons and that Monty Burns thinks they're "wankers".
t) I like how U2 pretty much carried both "Do They Know Its Christmas" and Live Aid.
u) Who knows to what degree, but it's pretty impressive that a band would have any role in bringing warring parties to peace as U2 did in Northern Ireland.
v) I like the fact that U2 claims to be the best band in the world.
w) I like the fact that U2 has stuck together all these years. Not just the band, but it seems like most of their team members have stuck together all these years.
Best songs: Pride, Where the Streets Have No Name, Walk On, Until the End of the World, Sunday Bloody Sunday, Beautiful Day, New Years Day, The Unforgettable Fire, Vertigo, The Fly, I Will Follow, With or Without You, I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For, One, In God's Country, October, Gloria, Wake Up Dead Man, Elevation, Out of Control, All I Want Is You, Bullet the Blue Sky, etc., etc.
Worst songs: Lemon
Showing posts with label 80's music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 80's music. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Thursday, May 31, 2007
DCV Top Bands of the 80's: #2
2. Big Country
The DCV countdown started way back on January 6th of this year w/ a note about the scoring system. Assuming most folks don't remember, it was a combination of
- how much I liked them in the 80's (60%),
- how much I like them now (30%), &
- how popular they were w/ other folks (10%)
Big Country lost big on the 3rd criteria, & got nosed on the 2nd criteria, but they were the clear winners in the "how much I liked them in the 80's" category. If it wasn't such a countdown copout I'd just call them #1a to the next band's #1.
It's sounds weird to say looking back, but Big Country's music was just incredibly instrumental in Dolberry's surviving (and perhaps prospering through) the high school and college years. It's cliched to say so, but their songs we're the soundtrack to the 80's for me.
I can still vividly remember sitting in my room listening to The Crossing and being inspired. Not necessarily inspired to be doing the homework I was supposed to be doing, but inspired to live my life in a certain way. Big Country's root-level philosophy was embedded in their one big hit "In a Big Country" (peaked at #18 in the U.S. in 1983) and it was to "stay alive". Stuart Adamson and the lads spun huge anthems about you-and-me people trying to make it in a world that was/is not always necessarily looking out for us. But the people in BC's songs always held onto a spark, always yearned for something better, always strove to stay alive (in the figurative and literal sense).
Some sample lyrics (that still come immediately to mind w/o need to reference them):
In a big country, dreams stay w/ you. Like a lover's voice fires the mountainside. Stay alive.
I will carry you home w/ the stars in my eyes. I will carry you home while the westerlies sigh.
It's just a shadow of the people we should be, like a garden in the forest that world will never see.
We save no souls. We break no promises.
But when I look at you I see you feel the same way too. And you will take my hand and be w/ me in wonderland
Im not expecting to grow flowers in the desert, but I can see the sun in wintertime.
The memories are very fresh when it comes to Big Country. The Crossing was always my get-fired-up-for-races tape. I still remember getting the Wonderland EP cassette from that mall south of Louisville (the same one where we got Intellivision) and wearing it out. Every Friday at SLU was Steeltown afternoon. The tradition was to listen to that tape in its entirety as part of the transition from school week to weekend. I wore lots of plaid back in the day in my attempts to emulate the lads. I still vividly remembering driving down Taylorsville Rd. one day and hearing "Look Away" from their third album The Seer on the radio.
The 80's were a great time for Dolberry up through 1988, when I dispatched myself to the wastelands just south of downtown Chicago for grad school leaving most of my friends behind. Big Country hit the skids (inside joke there) that year as well w/ their dismal 4th album Peace in Our Time.
Perhaps coincidentally, perhaps not, Dolberry and BC's fortunes both picked up in the early 90's w/ me leaving school, getting a job, getting engaged, getting on a good softball team. Meanwhile, Big Country blasted back to life w/ Buffalo Skinners. Again, the memories are vivid of an afternoon in Stephen's apartment in Elgin IL, him saying he'd gotten BC's new album & I should give it a listen. Not expecting much, figuring they had wandered off the track for good, I was surprised that the first song ("Alone") really rocked. Figuring that would be the outlier, was surprised the second song ("Seven Waves") really rocked. The whole album really rocked.
BC put out three more studio releases in the 90's and while never reaching the unobtainable heights of The Crossing or even Buffalo Skinners, they all had several very good songs on them.
I'm guessing that most readers know the total irony of how Big Country's story ended, or at least how Stuart Adamson's story ended. (I love Tony, Mark, & Bruce, but Stuart was the heart of BC.) He hung himself in a Best Western hotel room in Honolulu, on December 16th, 2001. His blood alcohol level at the time was > 0.279. Stuart had reportedly battled alcoholism for many years. It is strange to me how a life spent encouraging others to stay alive would end w/ someone taking their own. I get teared up thinking about it even now.
I was playing indoor soccer that winter in an attempt to stay in shape in the softball offseason. It was a team consisting of individuals who had signed up to be on the house team (i.e., no one knew each other) and we played that way. We lost nearly every game and most of the time was spent in endless recriminations of overly long shifts and not enough passing. I was pretty detached from all of this as I was in way over my head as far as my soccer skills go. I'd take a shift or two a half and try not to embarass myself. The night of Stuart's death (& I believe Kristin broke the news to me), I vowed to get a goal in his memory ... as he was a big soccer (football) fan. Amazingly enough, I got two. My only two of the season. Things like that make me think that there's a God, and he's real, and he's there for us, and he wants the best for you-and-me in a world that's not always looking out for us, and that we need to keep that spark, we need to keep yearning for something better, and that we need to stay alive ... just as Stuart said.
Best songs: In A Big Country, Fields of Fire, Wonderland, Harvest Home, Where the Rose Was Sown, Chance, all of The Crossing, You Dreamer, Look Away, pretty much all of them.
Worst songs: Eggplant, King of Emotion
The DCV countdown started way back on January 6th of this year w/ a note about the scoring system. Assuming most folks don't remember, it was a combination of
- how much I liked them in the 80's (60%),
- how much I like them now (30%), &
- how popular they were w/ other folks (10%)
Big Country lost big on the 3rd criteria, & got nosed on the 2nd criteria, but they were the clear winners in the "how much I liked them in the 80's" category. If it wasn't such a countdown copout I'd just call them #1a to the next band's #1.
It's sounds weird to say looking back, but Big Country's music was just incredibly instrumental in Dolberry's surviving (and perhaps prospering through) the high school and college years. It's cliched to say so, but their songs we're the soundtrack to the 80's for me.
I can still vividly remember sitting in my room listening to The Crossing and being inspired. Not necessarily inspired to be doing the homework I was supposed to be doing, but inspired to live my life in a certain way. Big Country's root-level philosophy was embedded in their one big hit "In a Big Country" (peaked at #18 in the U.S. in 1983) and it was to "stay alive". Stuart Adamson and the lads spun huge anthems about you-and-me people trying to make it in a world that was/is not always necessarily looking out for us. But the people in BC's songs always held onto a spark, always yearned for something better, always strove to stay alive (in the figurative and literal sense).
Some sample lyrics (that still come immediately to mind w/o need to reference them):
In a big country, dreams stay w/ you. Like a lover's voice fires the mountainside. Stay alive.
I will carry you home w/ the stars in my eyes. I will carry you home while the westerlies sigh.
It's just a shadow of the people we should be, like a garden in the forest that world will never see.
We save no souls. We break no promises.
But when I look at you I see you feel the same way too. And you will take my hand and be w/ me in wonderland
Im not expecting to grow flowers in the desert, but I can see the sun in wintertime.
The memories are very fresh when it comes to Big Country. The Crossing was always my get-fired-up-for-races tape. I still remember getting the Wonderland EP cassette from that mall south of Louisville (the same one where we got Intellivision) and wearing it out. Every Friday at SLU was Steeltown afternoon. The tradition was to listen to that tape in its entirety as part of the transition from school week to weekend. I wore lots of plaid back in the day in my attempts to emulate the lads. I still vividly remembering driving down Taylorsville Rd. one day and hearing "Look Away" from their third album The Seer on the radio.
The 80's were a great time for Dolberry up through 1988, when I dispatched myself to the wastelands just south of downtown Chicago for grad school leaving most of my friends behind. Big Country hit the skids (inside joke there) that year as well w/ their dismal 4th album Peace in Our Time.
Perhaps coincidentally, perhaps not, Dolberry and BC's fortunes both picked up in the early 90's w/ me leaving school, getting a job, getting engaged, getting on a good softball team. Meanwhile, Big Country blasted back to life w/ Buffalo Skinners. Again, the memories are vivid of an afternoon in Stephen's apartment in Elgin IL, him saying he'd gotten BC's new album & I should give it a listen. Not expecting much, figuring they had wandered off the track for good, I was surprised that the first song ("Alone") really rocked. Figuring that would be the outlier, was surprised the second song ("Seven Waves") really rocked. The whole album really rocked.
BC put out three more studio releases in the 90's and while never reaching the unobtainable heights of The Crossing or even Buffalo Skinners, they all had several very good songs on them.
I'm guessing that most readers know the total irony of how Big Country's story ended, or at least how Stuart Adamson's story ended. (I love Tony, Mark, & Bruce, but Stuart was the heart of BC.) He hung himself in a Best Western hotel room in Honolulu, on December 16th, 2001. His blood alcohol level at the time was > 0.279. Stuart had reportedly battled alcoholism for many years. It is strange to me how a life spent encouraging others to stay alive would end w/ someone taking their own. I get teared up thinking about it even now.
I was playing indoor soccer that winter in an attempt to stay in shape in the softball offseason. It was a team consisting of individuals who had signed up to be on the house team (i.e., no one knew each other) and we played that way. We lost nearly every game and most of the time was spent in endless recriminations of overly long shifts and not enough passing. I was pretty detached from all of this as I was in way over my head as far as my soccer skills go. I'd take a shift or two a half and try not to embarass myself. The night of Stuart's death (& I believe Kristin broke the news to me), I vowed to get a goal in his memory ... as he was a big soccer (football) fan. Amazingly enough, I got two. My only two of the season. Things like that make me think that there's a God, and he's real, and he's there for us, and he wants the best for you-and-me in a world that's not always looking out for us, and that we need to keep that spark, we need to keep yearning for something better, and that we need to stay alive ... just as Stuart said.
Best songs: In A Big Country, Fields of Fire, Wonderland, Harvest Home, Where the Rose Was Sown, Chance, all of The Crossing, You Dreamer, Look Away, pretty much all of them.
Worst songs: Eggplant, King of Emotion
DCV Top Bands of the 80's: #3
3. R.E.M.
Another band I "discovered" via the J-town library, which I guess was the Itunes/Napster of those way bygone days. R.E.M. is the highest ranking American band in this survey of Dolberry's memories.
R.E.M's career trajectory is essentially a chi-square distribution w/ four degrees of freedom (see plot). By the way, this is how I write at work. I express some fact/opinion and then say "see plot" usually in parentheses like above. Then I state some other fact/opinion which has its own plot, or sometimes for variety's sake a table.
Anyway, R.E.M. started in the early 80's, out of the University of Georgia, with their signature Peter Buck jangly guitars and Michael Stipe's mumbly, mostly incomprehensible lyrics. This style is most evident on Murmur, Reckoning, and Fables of the Reconstruction. In Dolberry's opinion, R.E.M. peaked with the fantastic Lifes Rich Pageant album which was produced in southern Indiana with Mellencamp's long time producer. In these days of Live Earth concerts and star-powered environmental conciousness, it's neat to remember that R.E.M. was crafting melodious treatises on why fouling our atmosphere and water (e.g., Cuyahoga) is not the best route to sustained life on this planet since 1986. And while the acid rain problem has more or less been mitigated through the use of market-based control measures (whereby utilites buy and sell pollution credits in an environment of a declining cap on those emissions) "Fall on Me" nails the oddity of a company having the right to inject large quantities of SO2 into everyone's air.
"Buy the sky and sell the sky and tell the sky and tell the sky, don't fall on me."
Anyway, Stipe et al., stayed at the top of their game through 1987's Document and 1988's Green. Somewhere along the way though, R.E.M. started morphing from a cool college rock band to a pretty much insufferably huge pop band. 1992's Automatic for the People was really the worst IMO w/ its whiny "Everybody Hurts" and "Man on the Moon". The story is that Kurt Cobain was listening to this album shortly before his suicide and while I don't think it's that bad, it certainly is something best avoided. They bounced back a little w/ 1994's Monster (a somewhat late entrance to the Nirvana-led early-90's scene). And while Dolberry consistently bought their next three albums hoping for a return to form, it never happened. I didn't even get their last album. At some point, everything R.E.M. did seemed to be highly, almost-transparently calculated, which was an abrupt departure from their early free form days. Wikipedia says they're currently in Ireland working w/ Jackknife Lee (sometimes U2 collaborator) on a new album. Dolberry is adopting a cautious wait-and-see attitude.
Best Songs: The One I Love, It's the End of the World As We Know It (and I feel fine), Harborcoat, Green Grow the Rushes, Disturbance at the Heron House, Begin the Begin, Fall on Me, I Believe, South Central Rain, Driver 8, Pop Song 89, Radio Free Europe, Losing My Religion, Bad Day, Binky the Doormat, What's the Frequency Kenneth.
Worst Songs: Man on the Moon (I loathe this song in a way that bold and red font'ing cannot capture.), most of the songs on New Adventures in Hi-Fi.
Another band I "discovered" via the J-town library, which I guess was the Itunes/Napster of those way bygone days. R.E.M. is the highest ranking American band in this survey of Dolberry's memories.
R.E.M's career trajectory is essentially a chi-square distribution w/ four degrees of freedom (see plot). By the way, this is how I write at work. I express some fact/opinion and then say "see plot" usually in parentheses like above. Then I state some other fact/opinion which has its own plot, or sometimes for variety's sake a table.
Anyway, R.E.M. started in the early 80's, out of the University of Georgia, with their signature Peter Buck jangly guitars and Michael Stipe's mumbly, mostly incomprehensible lyrics. This style is most evident on Murmur, Reckoning, and Fables of the Reconstruction. In Dolberry's opinion, R.E.M. peaked with the fantastic Lifes Rich Pageant album which was produced in southern Indiana with Mellencamp's long time producer. In these days of Live Earth concerts and star-powered environmental conciousness, it's neat to remember that R.E.M. was crafting melodious treatises on why fouling our atmosphere and water (e.g., Cuyahoga) is not the best route to sustained life on this planet since 1986. And while the acid rain problem has more or less been mitigated through the use of market-based control measures (whereby utilites buy and sell pollution credits in an environment of a declining cap on those emissions) "Fall on Me" nails the oddity of a company having the right to inject large quantities of SO2 into everyone's air.
"Buy the sky and sell the sky and tell the sky and tell the sky, don't fall on me."
Anyway, Stipe et al., stayed at the top of their game through 1987's Document and 1988's Green. Somewhere along the way though, R.E.M. started morphing from a cool college rock band to a pretty much insufferably huge pop band. 1992's Automatic for the People was really the worst IMO w/ its whiny "Everybody Hurts" and "Man on the Moon". The story is that Kurt Cobain was listening to this album shortly before his suicide and while I don't think it's that bad, it certainly is something best avoided. They bounced back a little w/ 1994's Monster (a somewhat late entrance to the Nirvana-led early-90's scene). And while Dolberry consistently bought their next three albums hoping for a return to form, it never happened. I didn't even get their last album. At some point, everything R.E.M. did seemed to be highly, almost-transparently calculated, which was an abrupt departure from their early free form days. Wikipedia says they're currently in Ireland working w/ Jackknife Lee (sometimes U2 collaborator) on a new album. Dolberry is adopting a cautious wait-and-see attitude.
Best Songs: The One I Love, It's the End of the World As We Know It (and I feel fine), Harborcoat, Green Grow the Rushes, Disturbance at the Heron House, Begin the Begin, Fall on Me, I Believe, South Central Rain, Driver 8, Pop Song 89, Radio Free Europe, Losing My Religion, Bad Day, Binky the Doormat, What's the Frequency Kenneth.
Worst Songs: Man on the Moon (I loathe this song in a way that bold and red font'ing cannot capture.), most of the songs on New Adventures in Hi-Fi.
Sunday, May 27, 2007
DCV Top Bands of the 80's: #4
4. The Rainmakers
Look out now! Here it comes!
One of the most underappreciated bands of all time, IMO. They had a pretty devoted following in Missouri in the mid-to-late 80s. Dr. Ron McCann, one of the best roommates a guy could have, put Dolberry on to the Rainmakers during the SLU days. Their eponymous debut album, The Rainmakers, ended up being their biggest, peaking at #85 on the U.S. album charts. It featured several Missouri-specific references: "Downstream" (which was about floating down the Mississippi w/ Mark Twain, Harry Truman, and Chuck Berry) and the searing "Rockin at the T-Dance" which lambasted the American engineering disasters of Apollo 1, Apollo 13 and the collapse of the Kansas City Hyatt which killed 114 people during an afternoon tea dance in 1981.
"You can still see the ghosts, but you can't see the sense.
Why'd they let the monkey go and blame the monkey wrench?"
This 1986 album spot-on identified many of the elements of what was wrong, maybe what is wrong w/ America: too lazy (Government Cheese), drinks too much (Drinkin' on the Job), too gossipy (Information), too lustful (Big Fat Blonde), and just generally too aimless (Long Gone Long, a true classic). Strangely enough, the Rainmakers had a Top 20 hit in England w/ "Let My People Go-Go" off this album.
They followed that album up w/ the equally excellent Tornado (1987) and The Good News and the The Bad News (1989). Stephen won a contest (or did I?) where we got to see them play a live studio show for WXRT w/ like 40 other people. I remember that was extremely cool but being slightly disappointed that frontman Bob Walkenhorst seemed way more interested in talking to the womenfolk in the crowd than dweeby (well, Stephen anyway) 20-something guys who had wished to thoroughly dissect every song they'd ever written. In retrospect, I can respect his decision. We saw them in concert at the Park West one time which was also cool.
The Rainmakers were always very popular in Norway for whatever reason. I wish they'd have come along at a time (like today) in which music is so widely available and when quality music will find a large audience via the internet. They would have been huge.
Anyway, my favorite memory of the Rainmakers occured on probably the best day of my life (top 2, definitely). The day I married the lovely KMD. We'd had a beautiful ceremony and had retired to the Galt House for our reception. The first three hours were mostly talking w/ people and taking care of all the obligations of a reception, but the last hour or so was a true blast, capped by Dolberry's mesmerizing dance to the Rainmakers "Tornado of Love" (slipped the cassette to the DJ at some point that night). If you weren't there, words can not describe the transcendentally athletic beauty of that dance. Well actually they can ... Dolberry mostly spun around like a tornado and tried to knock people down. I plan on reprising it on our 50th anniversary, so watch out.
Best Songs: Rockin at the T-Dance, Long Gone Long, Tornado of Love, One More Summer, Reckoning Day, The Other Side of the World, Too Many Twenties, Another Guitar.
Worst Songs: Wild Oats
The wind took, the ground shook, & me and my baby traded one last look.
The heavens squalled ... push come to shove.
Ain't no escaping the tornado of love.
Look out now! Here it comes!
One of the most underappreciated bands of all time, IMO. They had a pretty devoted following in Missouri in the mid-to-late 80s. Dr. Ron McCann, one of the best roommates a guy could have, put Dolberry on to the Rainmakers during the SLU days. Their eponymous debut album, The Rainmakers, ended up being their biggest, peaking at #85 on the U.S. album charts. It featured several Missouri-specific references: "Downstream" (which was about floating down the Mississippi w/ Mark Twain, Harry Truman, and Chuck Berry) and the searing "Rockin at the T-Dance" which lambasted the American engineering disasters of Apollo 1, Apollo 13 and the collapse of the Kansas City Hyatt which killed 114 people during an afternoon tea dance in 1981.
"You can still see the ghosts, but you can't see the sense.
Why'd they let the monkey go and blame the monkey wrench?"
This 1986 album spot-on identified many of the elements of what was wrong, maybe what is wrong w/ America: too lazy (Government Cheese), drinks too much (Drinkin' on the Job), too gossipy (Information), too lustful (Big Fat Blonde), and just generally too aimless (Long Gone Long, a true classic). Strangely enough, the Rainmakers had a Top 20 hit in England w/ "Let My People Go-Go" off this album.
They followed that album up w/ the equally excellent Tornado (1987) and The Good News and the The Bad News (1989). Stephen won a contest (or did I?) where we got to see them play a live studio show for WXRT w/ like 40 other people. I remember that was extremely cool but being slightly disappointed that frontman Bob Walkenhorst seemed way more interested in talking to the womenfolk in the crowd than dweeby (well, Stephen anyway) 20-something guys who had wished to thoroughly dissect every song they'd ever written. In retrospect, I can respect his decision. We saw them in concert at the Park West one time which was also cool.
The Rainmakers were always very popular in Norway for whatever reason. I wish they'd have come along at a time (like today) in which music is so widely available and when quality music will find a large audience via the internet. They would have been huge.
Anyway, my favorite memory of the Rainmakers occured on probably the best day of my life (top 2, definitely). The day I married the lovely KMD. We'd had a beautiful ceremony and had retired to the Galt House for our reception. The first three hours were mostly talking w/ people and taking care of all the obligations of a reception, but the last hour or so was a true blast, capped by Dolberry's mesmerizing dance to the Rainmakers "Tornado of Love" (slipped the cassette to the DJ at some point that night). If you weren't there, words can not describe the transcendentally athletic beauty of that dance. Well actually they can ... Dolberry mostly spun around like a tornado and tried to knock people down. I plan on reprising it on our 50th anniversary, so watch out.
Best Songs: Rockin at the T-Dance, Long Gone Long, Tornado of Love, One More Summer, Reckoning Day, The Other Side of the World, Too Many Twenties, Another Guitar.
Worst Songs: Wild Oats
The wind took, the ground shook, & me and my baby traded one last look.
The heavens squalled ... push come to shove.
Ain't no escaping the tornado of love.
Friday, May 25, 2007
DCV Top Bands of the 80's: #5
#5. John Mellencamp
As Etienne noted earlier, he & Dolberry and the Dolberry Sisters once made a pilgrimmage to Indianapolis to see Mellencamp on his home turf. As I recall, the concert was at the Indiana State Fairgrounds, which I interpreted to mean that the fair was going on and we should arrive really early. Which we did, but there was no fair. Instead we sat/stood in line for most of the day & still had "seats" (it was a huge lawn) about 50 yards back from the stage. I recall there being a really cool sunset that night.
Anyway, Mellencamp was obviously a big deal to us Midwesterners in the 80's. "Scarecrow" and "The Lonesome Jubilee" dealt w/ issues that meant something to people outside of LA and NYC. Lyrics like "I'll probably die in a small town", "It's a lonely ol' night", and "his dream burned up like paper in fire" resonated back in the day.
JM was famously from Seymour, Indiana. Seymour was one of the many southern Indiana towns I visited during the summers of 1987 and 1988 working for Nabisco. Thanks to Mr. Jim Allen, I had one of the best summer jobs imaginable. Let me highlight the perks:
1) You made like $7 bucks per hour which was pretty sweet.
2) Every Friday you could fill a box w/ all the Nabisco products you wanted (e.g., Oreos) from their snack closet.
3) They let me take Fig Newton end stands to SLU after they were done w/ them. We used them as bookshelves and they were surprisingly dorm-durable.
4) The job was really easy. All you had to do was take the cookies/crackers from the back room where the trucks dropped them off and stock the shelves.
5) On really long trips (e.g., Washington IN), Nabisco would put me up for the night in a hotel, w/ a per diem. Other than when APD was really young & we all went to San Diego for a conference, this was probably my favorite business trip of all time. Got to watch a movie and eat at Ponderosa on Nabisco's tab. Wow.
6) Most of my summer was spent driving around southern IN farmlands listening to music in the old Datsun. Except for those times when the Datsun expired, then I spent my time in repair shops in southern IN.
Anyway, that was a great job & Mr. Allen was a great guy. This year's version of the O'Jimmies (my Dad & my roto baseball team) is an obscene offense to his memory. Ah, now I'm in a bad mood, just thinking about it.
I was tempted to dock Mellencamp a spot in the ranking for every thousand times I heard his "Our Country" song in that Chevy commercial. If you're so inclined, move him down to 19th.
Best Songs: Paper in Fire, Small Town, Minutes to Memories, Human Wheels, Rain on the Scarecrow, Hand to Hold Onto, Pink Houses, Pop Singer.
Worst Song: "This is our countreeeee. From the East Coast ... to the West Coast ... to the Dixie Highway ... back home. This is our countreeeeee." And this is our truck.
As Etienne noted earlier, he & Dolberry and the Dolberry Sisters once made a pilgrimmage to Indianapolis to see Mellencamp on his home turf. As I recall, the concert was at the Indiana State Fairgrounds, which I interpreted to mean that the fair was going on and we should arrive really early. Which we did, but there was no fair. Instead we sat/stood in line for most of the day & still had "seats" (it was a huge lawn) about 50 yards back from the stage. I recall there being a really cool sunset that night.
Anyway, Mellencamp was obviously a big deal to us Midwesterners in the 80's. "Scarecrow" and "The Lonesome Jubilee" dealt w/ issues that meant something to people outside of LA and NYC. Lyrics like "I'll probably die in a small town", "It's a lonely ol' night", and "his dream burned up like paper in fire" resonated back in the day.
JM was famously from Seymour, Indiana. Seymour was one of the many southern Indiana towns I visited during the summers of 1987 and 1988 working for Nabisco. Thanks to Mr. Jim Allen, I had one of the best summer jobs imaginable. Let me highlight the perks:
1) You made like $7 bucks per hour which was pretty sweet.
2) Every Friday you could fill a box w/ all the Nabisco products you wanted (e.g., Oreos) from their snack closet.
3) They let me take Fig Newton end stands to SLU after they were done w/ them. We used them as bookshelves and they were surprisingly dorm-durable.
4) The job was really easy. All you had to do was take the cookies/crackers from the back room where the trucks dropped them off and stock the shelves.
5) On really long trips (e.g., Washington IN), Nabisco would put me up for the night in a hotel, w/ a per diem. Other than when APD was really young & we all went to San Diego for a conference, this was probably my favorite business trip of all time. Got to watch a movie and eat at Ponderosa on Nabisco's tab. Wow.
6) Most of my summer was spent driving around southern IN farmlands listening to music in the old Datsun. Except for those times when the Datsun expired, then I spent my time in repair shops in southern IN.
Anyway, that was a great job & Mr. Allen was a great guy. This year's version of the O'Jimmies (my Dad & my roto baseball team) is an obscene offense to his memory. Ah, now I'm in a bad mood, just thinking about it.
I was tempted to dock Mellencamp a spot in the ranking for every thousand times I heard his "Our Country" song in that Chevy commercial. If you're so inclined, move him down to 19th.
Best Songs: Paper in Fire, Small Town, Minutes to Memories, Human Wheels, Rain on the Scarecrow, Hand to Hold Onto, Pink Houses, Pop Singer.
Worst Song: "This is our countreeeee. From the East Coast ... to the West Coast ... to the Dixie Highway ... back home. This is our countreeeeee." And this is our truck.
Thursday, May 24, 2007
DCV Top Bands of the 80's: #6
#6 Stray Cats
The amazing thing about this countdown is how little staying power a band had to have to be one of my lingering favorites. The Stray Cats were huge for about 9 months in 1982 and 1983. They were a strange mix of 50's-sounding rockabilly w/ an 80's New Wave sensibility (having hit it big in England about a year prior to hitting it big at home).
My favorite memory of the Stray Cats was watching the video to "Rock This Town" some Saturday afternoon & attempting to duplicate Slim Jim Phantom's signature leap off the drum kit to end the song from a folding chair we had. Something went awry & I managed to destroy the chair. Pretty cool.
Best songs: Rock This Town, Stray Cat Strut, Rumble in Brighton, Sexy + 17
Worst songs: Did they have any other songs?
The amazing thing about this countdown is how little staying power a band had to have to be one of my lingering favorites. The Stray Cats were huge for about 9 months in 1982 and 1983. They were a strange mix of 50's-sounding rockabilly w/ an 80's New Wave sensibility (having hit it big in England about a year prior to hitting it big at home).
My favorite memory of the Stray Cats was watching the video to "Rock This Town" some Saturday afternoon & attempting to duplicate Slim Jim Phantom's signature leap off the drum kit to end the song from a folding chair we had. Something went awry & I managed to destroy the chair. Pretty cool.
Best songs: Rock This Town, Stray Cat Strut, Rumble in Brighton, Sexy + 17
Worst songs: Did they have any other songs?
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
DCV Top Bands of the 80's: #7
#7 Van Halen:
Edward Van Halen and cohorts flat out rocked for a period from 1978 to 1986 (or so). This has been somewhat overshadowed over the past two decades due to their unsurpassed ability for non-musical drama. To truly appreciate Van Halen I think you had to grow up in Louisville. We had one rock station ... WQMF 95.7. QMF played three bands in strict rotation, and while the songs could vary, these were the only three bands that were ever played: Led Zeppelin, Heart, and Van Halen. The Halen is the only one of those three I enjoyed. If I hadn't, this neverending blogging exercise would probably consist of Alabama, Eddie Rabbitt, & Oak Ridge Boys, because that's what the other side of the dial was.
Of course, if El Cuarte was doing the countdown of the 80's, it'd be a one-blog countdown consisting of these guys.
Best Songs: Panama, You Really Got Me, And The Cradle Will Rock, Jump, Ain't Talking Bout Love, Unchained, Ice Cream Man, Right Now, Dreams
Worst Songs: Jamie's Cryin', Dance the Night Away, Love Walks In
Edward Van Halen and cohorts flat out rocked for a period from 1978 to 1986 (or so). This has been somewhat overshadowed over the past two decades due to their unsurpassed ability for non-musical drama. To truly appreciate Van Halen I think you had to grow up in Louisville. We had one rock station ... WQMF 95.7. QMF played three bands in strict rotation, and while the songs could vary, these were the only three bands that were ever played: Led Zeppelin, Heart, and Van Halen. The Halen is the only one of those three I enjoyed. If I hadn't, this neverending blogging exercise would probably consist of Alabama, Eddie Rabbitt, & Oak Ridge Boys, because that's what the other side of the dial was.
Of course, if El Cuarte was doing the countdown of the 80's, it'd be a one-blog countdown consisting of these guys.
Best Songs: Panama, You Really Got Me, And The Cradle Will Rock, Jump, Ain't Talking Bout Love, Unchained, Ice Cream Man, Right Now, Dreams
Worst Songs: Jamie's Cryin', Dance the Night Away, Love Walks In
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
DCV Top Bands of the 80's: #8
#8 The Police:
My favorite memory of the Police was when the Dolberries all loaded into the Volare sometime during the summer of 1983 to drop Dolberry! off at the Naval Academy for some summer program while the rest of the family vacationed at Ocean City. I do not remember why I went along w/ this idea. Anyway, I had a decent enough time in Annapolis. I got some good brooding in while listening to U2's amazing War album on my walkman while running around the Naval Academy's track from which you could see Chesapeake Bay. I also had some fun learning about coastal engineering w/ sand dunes and stuff in the USNA wave tank. Very cool. Anyway, I probably would have gone to the Naval Academy but for three reasons: 1) the call of the Billiken, 2) I was pretty sure that I'd never get the hang of that strange thing the cadets have to do w/ their shoes whenever they turn a corner, and 3) I think you needed a Congressional letter of recommendation & we were Larouchies at the time. Anyway, from what I've gathered over the years, the rest of the family had a miserable time at the beach w/o me, and vowed never to be away from me ever again. This summer were all going to the beach as a family and so far no one has signed me up for Camp Lejeune, though I'm going to grip the door handles tighter this time as we pass. As they say ... fool me once ...
What does this have to do w/ The Police? I'm getting to it.
If you've been a reader of the DCV since day one, you'll know I was once upon a time a great countdown buff. Now, I hardly ever count stuff down (at least not quickly). 1983 was the golden era of countdowns & somehow I was able to talk Mom & Pop into constantly scanning the radio to see which song would be played the most during our car ride. Looking back, I can't imagine how annoying this must have been ... to listen to 5-10 seconds of every song before searching for another one. It certainly appears to indicate some guilt on the part of the parental units in dropping their only son off at military school while they went to the beach. The most-played-song contest came down to two songs: the horrific Sergio Mendes ballad "Never Going to Let You Go" and (here comes your payoff) The Police's "Every Breath You Take". As we entered into Kentucky heading west/home on I-64, EBYT was trailing by two plays, but aided by better knowledge of which stations were likely to play the Police and staying away from Mendes-favoring stations, Dolberry was able to engineer a victory for Sting, Stuart, & Andy.
The Police had a lot of great songs. "Roxanne" is pretty good, but if you've never had the pleasure of listening to it w/ accompanying falsetto from Dolberry, you haven't experienced it in full. "Don't Stand So Close to Me" was always a Trinity cross-country favorite which was sung when someone would try to run too close to you in practice. I love the fact that the Police were able to work this guy into a song so seamlessly. "Synchronicity II" was a pretty amazing song as well ... as the lyrics to that one pretty much summed up how I felt every day fighting the traffic home in Chicago.
Another working day has ended
Only the rush hour hell to face
Packed like lemmings into shiny metal boxes
Contestants in a suicidal race.
Sting's solo career was sort of a disappointment for those of us who enjoy rocking out on occasion. Guess he was doing was he wanted to be doing though, so bully to him. Hope their reunion tour goes well this summer. They're playing at Churchill Downs at some point. I guess Louisville has Giacomo to thank for that.
Best Songs: Every Breath, Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic, Don't Stand So Close to Me, Message in a Bottle, Synchronicity II, Roxanne
Worst Song: After a while I got tired of "King of Pain", but it was ok.
My favorite memory of the Police was when the Dolberries all loaded into the Volare sometime during the summer of 1983 to drop Dolberry! off at the Naval Academy for some summer program while the rest of the family vacationed at Ocean City. I do not remember why I went along w/ this idea. Anyway, I had a decent enough time in Annapolis. I got some good brooding in while listening to U2's amazing War album on my walkman while running around the Naval Academy's track from which you could see Chesapeake Bay. I also had some fun learning about coastal engineering w/ sand dunes and stuff in the USNA wave tank. Very cool. Anyway, I probably would have gone to the Naval Academy but for three reasons: 1) the call of the Billiken, 2) I was pretty sure that I'd never get the hang of that strange thing the cadets have to do w/ their shoes whenever they turn a corner, and 3) I think you needed a Congressional letter of recommendation & we were Larouchies at the time. Anyway, from what I've gathered over the years, the rest of the family had a miserable time at the beach w/o me, and vowed never to be away from me ever again. This summer were all going to the beach as a family and so far no one has signed me up for Camp Lejeune, though I'm going to grip the door handles tighter this time as we pass. As they say ... fool me once ...
What does this have to do w/ The Police? I'm getting to it.
If you've been a reader of the DCV since day one, you'll know I was once upon a time a great countdown buff. Now, I hardly ever count stuff down (at least not quickly). 1983 was the golden era of countdowns & somehow I was able to talk Mom & Pop into constantly scanning the radio to see which song would be played the most during our car ride. Looking back, I can't imagine how annoying this must have been ... to listen to 5-10 seconds of every song before searching for another one. It certainly appears to indicate some guilt on the part of the parental units in dropping their only son off at military school while they went to the beach. The most-played-song contest came down to two songs: the horrific Sergio Mendes ballad "Never Going to Let You Go" and (here comes your payoff) The Police's "Every Breath You Take". As we entered into Kentucky heading west/home on I-64, EBYT was trailing by two plays, but aided by better knowledge of which stations were likely to play the Police and staying away from Mendes-favoring stations, Dolberry was able to engineer a victory for Sting, Stuart, & Andy.
The Police had a lot of great songs. "Roxanne" is pretty good, but if you've never had the pleasure of listening to it w/ accompanying falsetto from Dolberry, you haven't experienced it in full. "Don't Stand So Close to Me" was always a Trinity cross-country favorite which was sung when someone would try to run too close to you in practice. I love the fact that the Police were able to work this guy into a song so seamlessly. "Synchronicity II" was a pretty amazing song as well ... as the lyrics to that one pretty much summed up how I felt every day fighting the traffic home in Chicago.
Another working day has ended
Only the rush hour hell to face
Packed like lemmings into shiny metal boxes
Contestants in a suicidal race.
Sting's solo career was sort of a disappointment for those of us who enjoy rocking out on occasion. Guess he was doing was he wanted to be doing though, so bully to him. Hope their reunion tour goes well this summer. They're playing at Churchill Downs at some point. I guess Louisville has Giacomo to thank for that.
Best Songs: Every Breath, Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic, Don't Stand So Close to Me, Message in a Bottle, Synchronicity II, Roxanne
Worst Song: After a while I got tired of "King of Pain", but it was ok.
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