Shocktober 2017

Each year, when the leaves begin to fall, and a chill wind blows through darkened streets, I enter into a month-long state from which return always seems... Doubtful...

That horrible state, that bone-chilling mode of being, that spine-tingling occasion, is known as SHOCKTOBER.

SHOCKTOBER is a time for films, books, music, and experiences of the terrifying sort.  I'll rate those various encounters here, each on a scale of one to five (one meaning disappointingly tepid-- a Bay City Rollers Halloween special-- and five meaning freaky to the extreme-- "Shining" levels of sheer terror).

(last updated on 10.6.17)

FILMS + TV:

1. The Twilight Zone - "The Hitchhiker" (****): A satirical classic from the classic satirical series.  A woman on a cross-country trip is pursued by a mysterious hitchhiker.  Where the trip leads was pretty obvious to me from the beginning.  Less obvious and super delightful was Rod Serling's commentary on the American Dream.  He seems to say here that even in a place as big as America, there's no place to go.  At the end of the day, the "Hitchhiker" will find you.  Get you kicks while you can, I guess.

2. "We Are Still Here" (**): Modern haunted house film that borrows a lot from older haunted house films.  It's got a good creepy atmosphere, stark cinematography, and a few choice scares, but it never generates the sort of forward motion this kind of movie requires.  Blame it on the stilted dialogue, which the inconsistent actors at the film's center struggle with, and a middle third that barely goes anywhere (literally-- the characters go to a bar and back).

3. "The Invitation" (****): A guy gets invited to a house to see some old friends.  That's all I'm gonna tell you.  What "The Invitation" lacks in big jump scares it more than makes up for in consistent creepiness.  You never know all you want to know about these characters; moments of seeming normalcy and warmth are instantly offset by disturbing monologues, weird videos, sudden violence, and reminders of a dark past.  A slow burner, for sure, but my god does it burn.

4. "They Look Like People" (*****): I'm giving it five stars because I think I've discovered a modern classic here.  The premise is simple, the execution is perfect-- man who sees monsters goes to live with an old friend in New York.  Things start to fall apart.  It's got a lot in common with the great indie horrors of yore, like "Paranormal Activity" and "The Blair Witch Project," but it's also got a truly moving human relationship at its center.  That both the scares and the drama of "They Look Like People" come in equal measure is a testament to the skill of the filmmakers and actors.  What it probably reminds me of more than anything, actually, is "Primer"-- minimal but evocative, otherworldly but recognizably human, funny, scary, and brilliant.

5. "It Comes at Night" (****): I keep doing this thing this Shocktober... Where I'm looking for scares and I end up with sobs.  The plot of "It Comes at Night" is familiar-- a family takes shelter in the woods during a mysterious plague, and live a simple, methodical life until they're visited by "strange" guests-- but the way the story is told-- relentlessly bleak, but completely in tune with the lives of its characters-- is totally fresh.  Imagine "The Walking Dead."  Now imagine something that's actually good.  Like "The Witch" before it, "It Comes at Night" is a filmmaker's film, one designed to upset audiences.  But mark my words: it will find a cult following, and it will go down and history as one of the disturbing greats.

6. "Diabolique" (****): A trick film, for sure.  But ooh, what a trick!  And the film is so much more.  A beautifully shot noir.  A grim look at abuse.  A Hitchcock-level thriller.  A peek at the intricacies of female friendship.  A ghost story.  A detective story.  A love story?  It was made in 1955, and it's bolder and weirder and scarier than most films made today.  Directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot, who apparently made one of the great white-knucklers in "Wages of Fear"-- something to add to my list!

BOOKS:

1. "Lolita" by Vladimir Nabokov (*****): Not a horror novel, per se, but definitely one of the most horrific.  Through his cruel, arrogant, perverted narrator, Humbert Humbert, Nabokov subjects readers to more pointless suffering and death than many a more explicit scary story.  It's a beautifully written book, and thus, one that makes you feel disturbingly complicit in the action at hand.

2. "Ghosts Know" by Ramsey Campbell (****): Campbell is the cult master of "urban horror," mixing the storied weird themes of Lovecraft and his circle with an interest in modern technology, communication, politics, and media.  "Ghosts Know" is a sort of detective thriller about a shock jock's efforts to locate a missing girl.  The novel unfolds gradually, but gorgeously, letting you savor the ways we do and don't trust the book's hero (also it's narrator).  On this page, it's closest in style to "Diabolique": we never know for sure if we're looking at a ghost story.  But something is clearly haunted.

MORE 2 COME!

Ten Songs I Wouldn't Put on Your Wedding Playlist (Because I Love You Too Much)

Good rule of thumb... If Governor Scott Walker is doing it, you should not

1. The Cha-Cha Slide: Because you’re not in high school anymore!

2. Pour Some Shoogah On Me: This is one of those “in the moment” dumb songs where, under the right circumstances (read: if you’re really drunk, and surrounded by friends and family), it MIGHT work for you.  (Every REO Speedwagon song is like this, too.)  But I wouldn’t wanna take the risk.

3. Blurred Lines: Too rapey.  “Got to Give it Up” would do just as well.

4. Billie Jean: It’s one of the great grooves, but it’s overplayed.  And Michael’s got plenty of killer wedding songs that aren’t about psychosexual paranoia (see: “Off the Wall”!).

5. Uptown Funk: Stop!  Wait a minute.  I liked this song the first fifty times I heard it.  And then I heard it seven thousand more times.

6. Get Low (“from the windows, to the walls”): This one makes the millennial crowd move, but the hook is “Ah skeet skeet skeet.”  Come on!

7. I Gotta Feeling: Not the soulful Beatles classic, but the Black Eyed Peas “Mazel Tov” song.  You deserve better than plastic corporate party product, goddammit!

8. Shape of You: You know, that song you hear all the time by that charmless frat douche Ed Sheeran?  I’d go for the real J.T. before a weak, inexplicably popular imitation.

9. The Cupid Shuffle: To the left, to the right, to the right, to the left, to the left, to the left, to the front, to the butt, to the left, to the left, to the left STOP TELLING ME WHAT TO DO

10.  Sandstorm: Actually.  Wait.  I would play “Sandstorm” at your wedding.

What is the Greatest American Song? (Round Three)

Round two is in the books!

The survey for round three is here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/PWGR26K

And the updated bracket can be found here: http://challonge.com/y9acqemz

It was an exciting round, with three match-ups decided by just a vote!

What did WE LEARN from it?

1. America is still enamored with the 60s.  And why not?  Aretha Franklin, the Beach Boys, Crosby Stills & Nash, Sam Cooke, Bob Dylan, Simon and Garfunkel, and Sly & the Family Stone (America loves an ampersand) all defeated foes from different decades, some older, some newer.  This blogger would never argue that those acts didn't make incredible, timeless music (some had better success rates than others, of course).  But it's worth noticing that...

2. America is committed to diversity!  Again we see acts from all across the musical and social spectrum advancing.  It seems that ours is a country large enough for hard hip-hop like N.W.A. AND the smooth soul of Al Green; for both the Talking Heads weirdo new-wave and traditional staples like "Crazy."  Well done, America.  Well done!

3. America has not lost its taste for revolution.  Many of the songs which advanced are true pioneers; they came along, and the world was forever changed.  No one had ever heard a pop symphony as sophisticated as "Good Vibrations" before the Beach Boys put it to tape, nor a folk rocker as figuratively rich and free as "Like a Rolling Stone" before Bob Dylan sneered its six-plus minutes in 1966.  "Blitzkrieg Bop" is arguably America's first punk song, and its round three competition "Give Up the Funk" codified what it is to be, well, funk.  The origins of gangsta rap, countrypolitan, soft rock, and arena rock will also be represented in Round Three.

4. America really, really likes "Purple Rain" (only twelve votes were cast against it in the first two rounds) and "Respect" (just fourteen votes for its competitors).  Have these songs benefited from weak competition?  Or will they cruise into Round Four despite stronger opponents?  Only time will tell as we continue searching for... THE GREATEST AMERICAN SONG!

What is the Greatest American Song? (Round Two)

Round one is done!

Here are the surveys for round two:

PART ONE: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/8Z3Z8XH
PART TWO: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/8ZGP6K9

And here's the updated bracket:
http://challonge.com/y9acqemz

And here's WHAT WE LEARNED from the first round:

1. We learned that America loves the classics.  For the most part, songs from the 60s and 70s had their way with their 80s, 90s, and 2000s counterparts.  Aretha Franklin crushed Santana and Rob Thomas's "Smooth" in the most lopsided match of the lot (38-3).  Britney, the Smashing Pumpkins, and Guns N Roses didn't fare much better.  Some contemporary acts did find a way through (The White Stripes, Beyoncé) but only after nail-biting battles (The Eagles and Patti Smith, respectively, did impressively against strong foes).

2. We learned that some classics might be a little too fucking classic, for America.  Robert Johnson went down hard against Otis Redding.  "The Star Spangled Banner," meanwhile, lost to "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag," which, honestly, would make for a much better and more representative national anthem.

3. We learned that America has wide-ranging and, for the most part, impressive tastes!  No one genre outperformed the rest; round two features hip-hop, funk, country, classic rock, pop, pop-metal, new wave, and soul.  Artists that I didn't think had a chance in hell managed to garner many votes in the first round (the Stooges scored eighteen against a tough opponent in the great Al Green; the Ronettes showed the everlasting power of the wall of sound as they faced off to a near draw against Michael Jackson).  The fact that Lee Greenwood got any votes at all is disturbing, especially as he squared off with Sam FUCKING Cooke... But he still lost.  And in Trump's America, that kind of affirmation means a lot.

4. We learned that America has a deep and profound affection for "Purple Rain" (which smashed "Like a Prayer"), "Fuck Tha Police" (which hilariously destroyed "Okie from Muskogee"), "Once in a Lifetime" (which steamrolled "September Gurls"), and, uh, "Jump" (which drew the theme from "The Greatest American Hero," and toward it was pitiless).  Will one of these fan favorites win it all?  We'll find out!

Whole Band, Briefly: The Pixies

Whole Band, Briefly takes a look a band's (mostly) complete discography.  I have to start and finish the article within half an hour, though.

The Pixies are one of the most obviously great bands of the last thirty years.  If you like weird rock and roll, there's probably a 95% chance you like this group.  They check all the boxes-- distinctive singer with a terrifying scream, clever lyrics that reference both UFOs and the Old Testament, solid hooks in just about every song, a powerful, straightforward rhythm section, strange and beautiful harmony vocals, searing electric guitar leads, and a general bent toward the endearingly odd.  They're  surf music from Mars, punk from the Marianas Trench, pop with its head popped off... They're the Pixies, and they're fucking superb.  Here's a real quick overview of what they were all about.  (They reformed in the early 2000s, did some reunion shows, and then kicked out Kim Deal, making them now "not the Pixies.")

Come on Pilgrim (1987) - **** - This EP tells you succinctly most of the what the band is about, even if it lacks the wallop of every following Pixies release.  ("Vamos" is here, but this version is only about a quarter as menacing and thrilling as the "Vamos" found on "Surfer Rosa.")  You have your speedy punk ("The Holiday Song," "Nimrod's Son," "Isla De Encanta") and your bizarro power pop ("Ed is Dead").  Begins and ends on two epic notes: "Caribou" is absolutely essential, an ode to the wild that, yeah, gets pretty fucking wild, and "Levitate Me" introduces the spiritual element in Black Francis's songwriting that has also made him more compelling than most of his peers and imitators.  Also: a funny little hip-hop thing called "I've Been Tired."

Surfer Rosa (1988) - *****- Released just a month after I was born, and it seems like the album I was born to love.  The band teams up with Steve Albini to record their loudest, rawest, most unhinged set.  On no other Pixies record do the guitars jackhammer you has hard as they do on "Something Against You," and the drums will never be more booming that they are at the start of "Bone Machine."  The songwriting is still there, though.  You've heard "Where is My Mind" because of Fight Club and because the song is a goddamn triumph.  You've probably heard "Gigantic," too, Kim's gorgeous sing-along dick ode that was hilariously/sadly in a recent phone commercial.  What you might haven't heard, and what you absolutely must here, are all the noisy experimental tunes that will never soundtrack anything but the dreams of old clowns... The psychedelic guitar and vocal interplay on "River Euphrates," the jagged melodies of "Brick is Red," the slamming "Broken Face," and the hyperactive Spanish rave-up "Oh My Golly."

Doolittle (1989) - *****- The band is on fire.  Gil Norton's production pares back the feedback to reveal... Shimmering melodies, creative playing, and hooks hooks hooks hooks hooks.  It begins with the strongest string of hits in Pixies history-- "Debaser," "Tame," "Wave of Mutilation," etc-- just saying their names should be enough.  This is Beatles-level shit, tunes and lyrics that should not work because they're so out of left field... But once you let them in your head, they are there for life.  Heck, every one of these songs has something to offer, from Kim's country-dirge "Silver" to "Crackity Jones," perhaps the fastest punk rocker in a catalog with more than a few.  I think I'm most partial to "No. 13 Baby," with its coda that deconstructs the melody and lets you see how crucial every member of this band is to its sound.  Some people call this the Pixies' finest hour.  I might have played it too many times as a teenager to join the chorus, though.  Use "Doolittle" wisely!

Bossanova (1990) - ****- The Pixies step backward!  Ahh!  But they were already so far ahead that you still have a heckuva good record.  Black Francis doesn't abandon punk entirely here (it shows up in the ugly, repetitive "Rock Music," and in a few savage rockers at the end) but he clearly takes a leap toward making "beautiful music."  For the most part, he succeeds: "Ana" and "Havalina" really are dreamy, neo-surf classics, and "The Happening," with its wailing background vocals from Kim and Francis, might be my all time favorite Pixies song.  Oh, and "Velouria."  How can you not like "Velouria"?  Maybe "Down to the Well" and "Stormy Weather" don't reach as high as the Pixies other great rock songs.  Maybe "Cecilia Ann" is the most mediocre opening cut in Pixies history.  Nevertheless, I'd take "Bossanova" over a "Doolittle" clone anyday.  Listen to this one front to back and it puts you in a world completely removed from the typical Pixies scene of grit and irony and noise.

Trompe Le Monde (1991) - *****- The band's swan song, their fourth in four years (!), and for a long time everyone seemed to hate it.  Which is strange, because it rules.  The word is "relentlessness"... The Pixies have been louder on other records, but they've never been so driving as on "Trompe."  They explore the extremes of their sound with chugging metallic epics ("The Sad Punk" and "I Believe in Space," which has twenty hooks and just kills me) and plaintive poppers ("Bird Dream of Olympus Mons," "The Navajo Know"); they do their own spin on "Hey Jude" ("Motorway to Roswell"), make fun of their fans ("Subbacultcha") and their foes ("U-Mass"), and cover the Jesus and Mary Chain so well you forget they did "Head On" first.  A ceaselessly creative record, chock full of tasty tasty guitar and vocal hooks, but you're still probably not into it because it doesn't have "Where is My Mind."  Fools!  A lack of hits is a GOOD THING!  You hear hits on the RADIO!  Albums are for secret gems!  Every track of "Trompe Le Monde" is a secret gem.

Survey: What is the Greatest American Song?

Kid Rock... Does not appear in the bracket

This last fourth of July, I got to thinking: what would happen if you took sixty-four great American songs by sixty-four great American artists, put 'em in an NCAA-style bracket, and had them duke it out for the title of the absolute greatest cut our magical country has ever produced?

(This is seriously the shit I think about.)

We're about to find out!  In this survey to find "The Greatest American Song," I've gathered iconic hits (and some misses) from across more than six decades of American music.  I've plumbed every major genre, from early rock and roll to gangsta rap, from 60's soul stompers to 90's country killers, to produce a list of songs that I think provides a fairly accurate representation of "modern American popular music."  I've created a bracket on a weird site called Challonge.com to track the tournament, and surveys on Surveymonkey to determine who gets ahead.  The rest... Is up to you.

Follow the links below to take the surveys and help put your favorite American song in the second round!  Remember: it's your duty as an American citizen to vote!

Have fun!

Round One, Part One:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/SPW7ZGT

Round One, Part Two:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/RKMVZRG

Round One, Part Three:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/RYZ9Q8T

Round One, Part Four:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/R2V2RJV

And here's the bracket!
http://challonge.com/y9acqemz

Down at the Rock and Roll Book Club: "Born to Run"

"Born to Run"
by Bruce Springsteen

2016

Just when you thought the rock-memoir-as-genre was becoming a little stale and overdone, here comes "Born to Run" by Bruce Springsteen, promising to do to you the reader what Bruce does to you, the faithful, as a listener: inspire you, reinvigorate you, challenge you, lift you up into rock heaven.  There he is, sitting (but surely not still) on his car, in beautiful black and white (ala the covers of Dylan's "Chronicles" and Keith's "Life," the most "serious" entries in the rock memoir canon, so far), beckoning you with this book as he does with his song of the same name.  Will you heed the call of the Boss?

If you're a fan, you probably should.  There are countless books about Bruce Springsteen by people who are not Bruce-- I've not read any of 'em!-- and I can't claim that "Born to Run" is the best, most elegantly written, or most thorough of them all.  But Bruce's memoir is surely the Bruceist of the bunch, sounding, feeling, practically smelling the way a great Springsteen record or Springsteen show does.  I did not for a second doubt the authorship of this book.  Everything-- from the overdone CAPITALIZATIONS to the frequently corny asides-- reads exactly like Bruce, like a 511-page long ramble given at one of the man's legendary shows.  This voice alone, perfectly captured, makes the trip more than worthwhile if, say, you can recite every word of "Thunder Road," or you think "Seaside Bar Song" is the greatest summer track known to the youth.

The book is so Bruce-ily rendered that a more probing critic-- someone who, say, believes "The River" would be a much better as a one-record album than a double, or who thinks the Manfred Mann version of "Blinded by the Light" is superior to the Boss's (fucker)-- might wonder if any of it is even real.  The "Springsteen image," as heroically American working class as it may appear, is after all, just that... An image.  Though Bruce admirably dives into his bouts with depression (I'd say a good five chapters are spent on this subject alone), and spends the first twenty pages or so describing his humble New Jersey beginnings in beautiful, sincere, unfakeable detail, he pulls back from a lot of places where a perhaps less-image-conscious artist might keep pushing.  The infamous tensions between Bruce and E Street band, for example, are mentioned, but without a clear outline of who said what to who and why.  For Bruce's fans, this is the mark of a gentleman: he doesn't show any bitterness toward old business associates who a lesser person might wanna savage in their tell-all.  For his detractors, it might seem a great big put on... More working-class, normal-person mimicry from a man who left that world (never to return!) at least thirty years ago.

I could grant such a detractor that "Born to Run's" later chapters, in which Bruce often alludes to his vast fortune and incredible luck, as well as his anxieties about "tapping in" to a certain mindset that informed his earlier writing, are far less compelling than the book's first third.  This allowance might simply be a testament to that first third's greatness, though.  Because there's no doubt that Bruce earned his right to be part of rock's elite.  From the most basic of American middle-class family situations, the Boss climbed, month-by-month, year-by-year, into a place of musical respectability and creative achievement.  He did this by-- how else?-- the classic American way of working your ass off, not caring about anything else but your craft, and wanting to live like Elvis.  (The early Elvis chapter will be in future anthologies about American pop culture, I swear.  I've never read such a perfect distillation of the King's essence.  You read Bruce's words and you get it... The guy, Elvis, killed, at least for a while there.)  The chapters in which Bruce puts together "Greetings from Asbury Park" and "The Wild, the Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle" excited the hell out of me.  Yes, the whole first section, "Growin' Up," is just alive with the spirit of rock and roll...

But yeah, there's the other two thirds of the book.  Which I will admit are not as thrilling as the first.  But Bruce knows this, too.  He's not a fool-- Springsteen, the student of rock and roll, understands better than anyone how "it's better to burn out than to fade away."  (Shit... He wrote a song that goes "I DON'T WANNA FADE AWAY!")  Nothing is more interesting, at least to a white person, than the romance of rock and roll.  When Bruce starts to move away from that-- in his book and in the life it describes-- the energy can't help but flag.  But it's to "Born to Run's" credit that the energy hardly stops.  Even as he settles down, raises his children, and releases a series of albums not nearly as good as "Darkness on the Edge of Town," Springsteen writes with verve and skill.  Reading the last chapters of the book, I remembered how much of Bruce's career-- even the 70's albums-- is devoted to the flip-side of the rock and roll dream: to the lost souls, the never-go-anywheres, the painful realities of relationships and work and life.  Of course Springsteen can tell the story of his psychological breakdowns with panache-- he's told that story through other perspective for decades!  And of course his descriptions of Danny and Clarence in their final days are incredibly moving-- death is as real in a good Springsteen song as passionate, reckless, wondrous living!

(But where's my chapter on "Lucky Town," Bruce, huh???)

Rock memoirs are written by celebrities who have spent a good deal of their lives in the public eye.  Their lives and careers are so premised on presenting a certain "character" to the public.  Hence, "Chronicles" is allusive and mysterious and full of beat poetry, the way we want Dylan to be.  (That there's a chapter on "Oh Mercy" and not "Blonde on Blonde" is just so very Dylan, isn't it?)  And "Born to Run," even if it pulls some punches, does so in a way that we expect and desire from Bruce Springsteen.  You could call it a flaw in the "rock memoir" model.  Certainly, a serious scholar of the Boss would do better to consult other works before taking the man and the myth at his word.  But goddammit, if you're just an average Joe or Jill living an average life, it feelings fucking GREAT to take the Boss at his word.  Take his hand, and you're riding out tonight to chase the promised land, on his records and here, in this moving, warm, engagingly written, pretty great memoir.