The Day I Fell In Love With A Dead Man

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Ok, so I'm driving down I-75 today minding my own business listening to the absolutely hideous soundtrack CD from the movie "Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man." A movie that "starred" Mickey Rourke and Don Johnson (of "Miami Vice" fame).

Why am I doing this you ask?

I'm doing this because . . . it's my job.

It's . . .

what I do.

Occasionally when I find a used CD to sell on eBay and it's a bit scuffed up or has a tiny bit of "digital rot," I have to give it a test run to make sure that it plays smoothly. Normally these CDs are fairly old and out-of-print, and as luck would have it, quite often they suck. Unfortunately, I have to play the CDs at high volumes so that I don't miss any possible defects, which means that many of these CDs not only suck, but they suck very loudly.

Well, the soundtrack to "Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man" was no exception. It was sucking right along as I headed south on I-75 this morning.

The opening number was the vacuum-inducing 7 minute and 15 second epic sleazefest titled "Long Way From Home" by the band Copperhead. Then Roadhouse ratcheted up the suck quotient just a smidgin more when they unleashed the phallic-driven "Tower Of Love" like some chordless not to mention tuneless Dirt Devil pecker-upper. Then it was Shooting Gallery, L.A. Guns, and The Screaming Jets upping the suckfest ante with their contributions "I Mess Around," "C'Mon," and "Wild Obsession."

It was at the end of this barrage of collective suckage that the vacuum ceased to suck. And irony of ironies - I fell in love.

With a dead man.

Out of nowhere, on the "Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man" soundtrack of all places, a slow, beautiful ballad that I had never heard before began to unfurl.

And then my skin.

My very flesh.

Commenced to make goose.

And as my eyes began to well-up with tears, I heard the most wonderful voice.

And I knew that it was none other than the late, great Waylon Jennings.Holy shit.

I mean - I knew the guy could sing the hell out of a song but . . . *damn*

I grabbed the CD case, scanned the track listing, and saw that the song was titled "Hardline" and that it was written by T. Kimmel/D. Morgan.

When I got home I immediately went online and discovered that Tom Kimmel wrote quite a few songs for such varied bands and individuals as The Byrds, Rodney Crowell, The Band, Tammy Wynette, Johnny Cash, and others. I also found out that the song was performed by 60s folkie Richie Havens on the motion picture soundtrack "Navy Seals." Apparently, Waylon's version is the keeper however, and since it doesn't show up anywhere else in his extensive catalog, there is a demand for my otherless dreadful soundtrack CD.

But enough already with my story, let's cut to the chase and hear the song.

[Note: YouTube indicates that the song is over eight minutes long but it's actually only a little over four. The song plays twice because I guess they figure, just like me, once won't be enough for you]:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLUoBNegZJU


" . . . sigh . . . "
(k. smith)

HARDLINE 
(T. Kimmel/D. Martin)   

Midnight, street light,  
Shadows, touch your face 
Whisper, goodnight, 
Though I want you so, to stay.  

I'm standing on the hardline, 
Taking my sweet time 
Praying that you'll see why, 
I'm slow to change.  

Been fighting on the front line, 
Victim of a heart crime 
Just can't let you steal mine, away 
Listen, reasons never will explain.  

Freedom, is just to save time, 
'Til I'm strong enough, 
To bend and not break.  

I'm standing on the hardline, 
Taking my sweet time 
Hoping that you'll see why, 
I'm slow to change.  

Well, I need your trust, 
Don't give up, don't shut me down, 
I'll open up, 
If you just try love my way.   

I'm standing on the hardline, 
Taking my sweet time 
Hoping that you'll see why, 
I'm slow to change.  

Been fighting on the front line, 
Victim of a hard crime 
Can't just let you steal mine away.

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Lemme Tell Ya 'Bout Your Blood, Bamboo Kid

I'm not usually a fan of various artists albums because they tend to stop and start and stumble along until they eventually get completely lost in a hodge-podge of artistic styles. And a CD where various artists cover songs written by various artists only seems to up the anti- (sic) even more.

That being said, I stumbled upon the recent release WAR CHILD HEROES today. I suspect that it may have the same aesthetic issues mentioned above, but it's hard to deny the social and humanitarian importance of the project:


"WAR CHILD, an award winning charity that provides humanitarian assistance to war-affected children in some of the most devastated regions of the world, are proud to announce a unique and unprecedented collaboration between some of the biggest names in music history and today's hottest artists. We asked some of the biggest legends in music history (Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, The Kinks, The Clash, Brian Wilson, Stevie Wonder, Paul McCartney, Roxy Music, David Bowie) to select a classic track from their own songwriting catalog, and nominate an artist from the next generation (Beck, Lily Allen, The Hold Steady, Rufus Wainwright, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, TV On The Radio) to create a modern reworking of that classic song. The album WAR CHILD PRESENTS HEROES: AN ALBUM TO BENEFIT CHILDREN AFFECTED BY WAR is the result: 16 exclusive and truly inspired cover versions."


Lily Allen was picked by Mick Jones of The Clash to perform what I consider one of the most emotionally moving songs ever written, Straight To Hell by The Clash. Jones also sings back-up on the Allen version.

The song is about the tens of thousands of "Amerasian" kids (American fathers/Asian mothers) left to live in their own personal limbo after the "conflict" in Vietnam:

"lemme tell ya 'bout your blood, bamboo kid

.it ain't Coca-Cola, it's rice"



Below is the original song as recorded by The Clash 27 years ago in 1982, followed by Lily Allen's wonderful version from the newly released WAR CHILD PRESENTS HEROES album. The song's lyrics are also included below.

The Clash "Straight To Hell"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQwm1v1R-qM

Lily Allen "Straight To Hell"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGL5EtYGGDM





Straight To Hell
(Joe Strummer/Mick Jones)

If you can play the fiddle
How's about a British jig and reel?
Speaking King's English in quotation
As railhead towns feel the steel mills rust water froze
In the generation
Clear as winter ice
This is your paradise

There ain't no need for ya
Go straight to hell boys

Ya wanna join in a chorus
Of the Amerasian blues?
When it's Christmas out in Ho Chi Minh City
Kiddie say papa papa papa papa-san take me home
See me got photo photo photograph
Of you mamma mamma mamma-san
Of you and mamma mamma mamma-san

Lemme tell ya 'bout your blood, bamboo kid
It ain't Coca-Cola, it's rice.

Straight to hell

Oh papa-san
Please take me home
Oh papa-san
Everybody they wanna go home

So mamma-san says
You wanna play mind-crazed banjo
On the druggy-drag ragtime U.S.A.?
In Parkland International
Hah! Junkiedom U.S.A.
Where procaine proves the purest rock man groove and rat poison
The volatile Molatov says -

Heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh . . .
Go straight to hell

Can you really cough it up loud and strong?
The immigrants they wanna sing all night long
It could be anywhere
Most likely could be any frontier
Any hemisphere
No man's land

There ain't no asylum here
King Solomon he never lived round here

Go straight to hell boys

this blog entry is dedicated to Joe Strummer (1952 - 2002),
lyricist/vocalist extraordinaire, heart extra-large, human extra-being










"'oh papa-san

.please take me home' . . .

.go straight to heaven joe
.do not pass 'go' joe"
.(k. smith)

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Guest Commentary

from CNN's Jack Cafferty, not normally one of my favorite political commentators or news stations by a longshot:

(CNN) -- It's time for the Republican Party to tell former Vice President Dick Cheney to put a sock in it.

Here we are 100 days into the new administration of Barack Obama, and Darth Vader is still wandering around grumbling about why the new administration is all wrong.

Nobody is interested anymore, Mr. Vice President. You and your gaggle of miscreants had your shot, and we are in the toilet because of it. Don't you get it?

The election of this nation's first African-American president and his massacre of John McCain in the Electoral College is because of you and President Bush and the myriad problems you left us all with.

Last week, you were predicting President Obama's economic policies would have devastating effects in the long term. This from a member of an administration that more than doubled the national debt in eight years and gave $700 billion to its buddies on Wall Street, no questions asked. You're a little short on credibility when it comes to the economy, don't you think?

We are reading about enhanced interrogation memos written by lawyers at the Justice Department that authorized the United States of America to behave like some Third World gang of hoodlums like the Taliban or al Qaeda.

Two members of al Qaeda were waterboarded 266 times in a single month in violation of the Geneva Conventions as well as other international agreements we are signatories to. Who authorized those memos to be written, Mr. Vice President?

President Obama has done an about-face and said he now favors an investigation into those memos. Where will that investigation lead, Mr. Vice President? This country used to stand for something before you and President Bush got your hooks into it.

Now our reputation is shot, we are bankrupt, we continue to fight two wars that you started and the economy is in the worst recession since the Great Depression. And you have the temerity to go around criticizing those who replaced you? How dare you?

If the Republican Party has any hopes of redeeming itself in the eyes of the voters, they must distance themselves from the likes of Dick Cheney and the fundamentalist right-wingers who have become the poster children of political intolerance in this country.

Why do you think some members of your party are suggesting you embrace same-sex marriage? Because of a change of heart? I doubt it. More likely, the wiser heads in the party recognize that without some nod toward inclusion of someone besides the extremists you represent, your party's political chances going forward hover between slim and none.

Please, go quail hunting and leave the rest of us alone.

BONUS PHOTO!

.. A true oddity: a group photo where Dick Cheney may look the *least* scary.

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Big Doin's/Doings Of Bigness In D-Town This Saturday!

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. . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dayton

. . . . . . . .. . . . ... .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Ohio


There's big doin's in Dayton Ohio this Saturday April 25th @ the South Park Tavern on Wayne Avenue.

ANDREW & THE PRETTY PUNCHERS will be performing with Nashville's The Deep Sensation & Roman Candle from Chapel Hill, NC.

The Deep Sensation has opened for Gillian Welch, and have been featured in USA Today, Rolling Stone, and elsewhere.

The show is sponsored by the national music publication Paste Magazine and WOXY online ("BAM! . . . the future of rock!" (D. Hoffman/R. Ainman))

As far as profiles go - this is pretty high. And as far as beans go - these are pretty cool.

The show will begin at 9:00. There is a $5.00 cover charge.

Dayton's favorite sons (i.e. ANDREW AND THE PRETTY PUNCHERS) will take the stage at about 11:45. They will immediately return it *mere minutes later* so that they can play on it at about 11:50.

FYI - South Park Tavern closes at 1:00 and they typically run their shows on time, so the above info should be pretty accurate.

Contact me if you have any questions. Preferably about the show.






"Gimme a 6 packa Salukes 'n a packa smokes - tuh go...oh, hi! I'm Greg!"






(thanks to Brock for the top photo of Andy)
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Confession **UPDATE**

I realized whilst laying/lying/laining (pick one) awake in bed last night that I inadvertently made an incomplete - and therefore null and void - confession on this blog on April 13th (see blog entry "My Bad On The Previous . . . " below).

After a *full and complete* examination of my conscience I was able to produce two additional pages of possible indiscretions thereby making my "sinventory" - and subsequent confession - complete and "good to go" (to heaven I hope).

**Please refer to the aforementioned April 13th blog entry for my UPDATED confession**

In conclusion, I just wanted to take this time to thank *each and every one of you* for your ever-present and effervescent interest in my soul - whether it be blemished or cleansed (my soul that is).

You guys are the best!


From deepest East Dayton I remain,
Kevin J. (Smith) (i.e. "Crunchy" . . . i.e.e. "The Crunchman")










[ED. NOTE: Also please be advised of the newly added "EDITOR'S NOTE" at the end of the April 13th blog entry]

What Is Dayton's Rock And Roll Legacy? . . . We're #1!

The editors at Amazon.com, those arbiters of sales and profits (and in this one instance - great taste!) have just released their top 100 greatest indie (independent) rock albums of all time. I think that they got the first pick right. :-) After that things get very shaky - no Strokes? no Uncle Tupelo? no Andrew And The Pretty Punchers? no Silver Jews? no Decemberists - plus many, many others. And if you're gonna take the list all the way back to Husker Du and The Replacements (the mid-80s), there are even more bands/artists missing. I say - keep the #1 pick and start over on the other 99 albums. 1. Bee Thousand by Guided by Voices

2. In the Aeroplane Over the Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel

3. Spiderland by Slint

4. Exile In Guyville by Liz Phair

5. Imperial f.f.r.r. (Deluxe Edition) by Unrest

6. Slanted & Enchanted by Pavement

7. If You're Feeling Sinister by Belle & Sebastian

8. Surfer Rosa by Pixies

9. Either/Or by Elliott Smith

10. Bakesale by Sebadoh

11. 69 Love Songs Volume 1 by The Magnetic Fields

12. Daydream Nation by Sonic Youth

13. Michigan by Sufjan Stevens

14. We Have the Facts and We're Voti… by Death Cab For Cutie

15. I See A Darkness by Bonnie "Prince" Billy

16. No Pocky for Kitty by Superchunk

17. Dig Me Out by Sleater-Kinney

18. Give Up by The Postal Service

19. Kill the Moonlight by Spoon

20. I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One by Yo La Tengo

21. Lifted Or The Story Is In The So… by Bright Eyes

22. Diary by Sunny Day Real Estate

23. Moon Pix by Cat Power

24. Funeral by Arcade Fire

25. Black Candy by Beat Happening

(the remaining 75 albums can be viewed in the "Events And Features" section of Amazon.com)

Below are the first lines from the first song from the first GUIDED BY VOICES song that I ever heard back in 1994:

"sitting out on your house

watching hardcore ufo's
drawing pictures, playing solos til ten

are you amplified to rock?
are you hoping for a contact?
i'll be with you, without you, again"

(R. Pollard "Hardcore UFOs")


That album was BEE THOUSAND and it has now been chosen as the #1 indie rock album of the past 25+ years.

As far as beans go, I think them are some pretty cool ones.

And just for the record - my answer to both of Robert's questions was, is, and always will be a resounding "YES!"

Yes - I was, am, and always will be "amplified to rock." And yes - I was, am, and always will be "hoping for a contact" - perhaps now even more than ever . . . for I reside, and suspect that I will always remain, seated comfortably on the rooftop inside my head, playing solos til ten (and then some). Speak to me. Show me a sign. I want to make contact. I want to believe and I want to belong. Hardcore UFOs indeed . . . "Permission to come on board . . . SUH!"

But I digress.

So a great big thanks to my fellow Daytonians Robert Pollard, Tobin Sprout, Mitch Mitchell, Kevin Fennell, et. al. for BEE THOUSAND (and PROPELLER and ALIEN LANES and UNDER THE BUSHES, UNDER THE STARS and many others). And God bless Robert Pollard for sharing his substantial Muse with anyone who invests the time - not just to listen, but to hear. To hear, and then feel, the mystery of that evocative and majestic glory washing all over them again and again.

And don't forget. It's never too late because . . .

























































































" . . . POLLARD's strong point - which is precisely where rock itself excels - is combining music and words to produce a distinctly third impression that's complex, unnameable and yet startlingly vivid"
(ROLLING STONE review of BEE THOUSAND 8/11/94)

" . . . POLLARD dazzles with his casual vocal virtuosity. He appears able to weave beautiful melodies over anything"
(Matt Diehl, ROLLING STONE)

"Music seems to come pouring out of some people: Mozart, the young Rossini, Paul McCartney, Prince, and now ROBERT POLLARD"
(Jon Pareles, NEW YORK TIMES)

For my recently departed sister Peggy I dedicate "The Goldheart Mountaintop Queen Directory" from BEE THOUSAND. I hope and pray that you have found peace of mind on your goldheart mountaintop and that you are looking down upon me with an all-knowing smile:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcUG_rXHeRM



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My Bad On The Previous Blog Entry (see "Punxsutawney Christ" below)

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My open letter to the world,

I realize that the Easter jokes in my previous blog entry were irreverent and sinful. To that end I would like to take a brief moment to rid myself of those moral transgressions by casting them against the divine rock of judgment and penance.

Thank you.
































. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . VOILA! . . . All better!

. . . . . . . . . . . .Everybody say: "YAY! for Crunchy!"



Now that his soul has been cleansed maybe someday Crunchy will be President . . . or even better - a saint!











[ED. NOTE: the "K. S." on the title page of "My Confession Book" and the numbers written in pencil next to the professionally printed "sins" are in fact the *actual* contemporaneous renderings of the artiste as manchild (no shit). It is believed that these notations were made by the artiste during the week prior to his very First Confession which probably occurred in 1962. Unfortunately, confirming the actual date of that blessed event has proven to be inconclusive due to the inherent limits within the field of "soul carbon-dating" - not to mention the general elusiveness (dare we say "reclusiveness") of the artiste's soul]


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Punxsutawney Christ

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Hey,

Does anyone know if Punxsutawney Christ saw his shadow on Easter when he came out from behind that bigass rock? I sure hope not because these 30 degree temperatures in April are really starting to bring me down.

By the way . . . how come this "Jesus" fella comes out from behind a rock once a year and he's some kind of "superhero" while I crawl out from underneath mine a couple of times a month and no one even says "boo"?

Hey kids - can you say "double standard?!"

Lemme know.

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